Artistic inspiration
Artist in Focus: Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso, although most famous for his cubism movement, also had a blue period in the early part of the 20th century. During this time, he only painted with the blue color and built form with white for highlights and changing between dark and lighter blues. I will be doing this except I will be building the form of the hair by making 3-D tubes first instead of using color to build it. Then I will be placing strips of blues, whites, blacks, and some purple on top of the form to replicate this blue period. |
Artist in Focus: Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh painted in the impressionist style, with some of his most famous artworks being apart of the post-impressionism art movement. Within the impressionism art movement, artists use bright colorful strokes to create the whole image and they did this by painting in layers with wet paint still on the canvas and applying new stokes of new paint. This piece of Van Gogh's specifically stood out to me since the subjects beard in "Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin" is mainly brown but when zoomed in, there are clear strokes of blue and some black. I will be creating this through the hair on my cardboard sculpture by only using blues to make the hair. Since I will be finding random blue colors on cardboard scraps, I will cut the pieces into slivers like the strokes of impressionism paintings to replicate the look of hair. I was also inspired by this piece since the background is as distracting as the portrait which is what my piece is going to have since the hair will be only in the background and all the color will only be behind the figure. |
Planning
Process
This is the backside of the face which I scored using a box cutter and then to stabilize the arch and make it secure, I hot glued two strips of thick cardboard and glued the sides of the arches together. There were some problems with the cardboard being flimsy on the sides since I was using a box that had been folded so the creases made the arch too pointy so I took electrical tape and put layers along the back of the creases.
|
I made the face by layering pieces of cardboard onto areas where I wanted more definition. I started with the nose since it is in the center of the face and made a rectangular prism with hot glue. I measured roughly the proportions of my face and replicated those measurements onto the curved piece of cardboard. Then I worked on the lips by starting with a big piece of cardboard and slowly layering with smaller sizes to make a 3-dimensional shape. Then I started the eyes but one of the problems I noticed was that I made the eyes originally slanted because I placed them along the curve of the face. I fixed this by making the eyes flat straight across the face and filling the empty space around the curve with extra cardboard. There was not enough dimension in the cheeks so I layered cardboard but left the space under the eyes empty to make the face look exhausted. I added cheeks to both sides and built up the cheek bone to the corner of the eye. Once the face was completed, I thought that the face needed an ear but I only made it on the right side since the left was gonna have hair draped over the side. I made the ear the same way I made the other facial features by starting with a base and then curving cardboard around the edge to create a lip. I made a tab on the end of the ear so I could easily attach it onto the face. I also kept the back side of the face with a long piece of cardboard because I wanted to have an attachment that I could glue onto the back panel.
I used my dad's razor as a reference for making my own razor. I started with a rectangular prism and then found that the razor was more rounded on the sides so I added triangles around the sides. This helped the shape but it left a lot of hot glue marks. The end result was larger than the reference which I liked because I want the razor to have significance in the art piece.
|
When building the hand, I first made multiple tiny circles varying in three different sizes. I took the largest circle and placed that on the bottom and hot glued it to a strip of thin cardboard. I then put the second smallest circle on the same strip and then the smallest at the end- with leaving equal space between each circle. This was to represent the bending points in the finger. I repeated this 5 times but made some of the strips shorter than the others to show differing finger lengths. Then I glued the 5 strips onto a cylinder base with some angle for the thumb and pinky.
|
I used soda can boxes and tried draping one piece over the head but it did not fold over the whole head. I cut the boxes into strips and glued them along the head, trying to follow the shape of the head. Once I did this, I cut a hairline around the face. I did not put cardboard around the back of the head since it was going to be covered by the back panel anyway. I used this bright yellow color since I wanted this scalp to represent relief and happiness which the color yellow often is associated with.
|
Since I had the hand, razor, and face all completed, I wanted to finally incorporate all of them together. I took the thickest cardboard I had and layered and glued it together to form a thick back panel. Then I glued the back of the head and held the face against the center of the back panel until the hot glue dried. I glued the end of the arm onto the edge of the panel with the razor glued to each finger except the pinky. I angled the hand to look like it was against the scalp with the razor and glued the razor to the forehead.
|
I started building the hair strands by repeatedly making curves. At first I made curved piece of cardboard that was long and I thought it did not look like hair so I started cutting the pieces up. I cut the curves, then I put the pieces unaligned at different angles so it looked wavy. Since there was a gap in the space they were not touching, I took strips of cardboard and glued it over the open area.
|
I had spent the previous weeks collecting and cutting blue cardboard so I could start this process. I took the strips and started gluing them down on the outer part of the curve towards the bottom using darker cardboard. Then I slowly added lighter shades of blue into the center of the curve to give it more dimension. I repeated this process for every single hair strand.
|
Experimentation
I knew throughout my sculpture, I was going to need to build 3-D form. I started by breaking down a box and cutting a panel off then I took scissors and slid the sharp edge down the back panel of the cardboard. I made sure not to go all the way through since then the cardboard will detach but I just wanted to bend it. I repeated this multiple times with just less than an inch space in between each line and then I bent the cardboard in a circle.
|
I worked with scoring cardboard before but the problem I was facing was the cardboard moving back to its original flat shape even after scoring. I tried to hold the shape in my hands for a bit to see if it needed more direction but no matter how long it was curved, it always wanted to go back flat. I cut strips of thick cardboard and started with gluing it to one side. The first couple times I did this, I kept trying to glue the other too quickly which resulted in the first side separating from panel.
|
I used this piece on the front of the razor. I experimented with tearing the elements of cardboard apart to see the inside. I really like this texture and thought it reflected perfectly the shape I was going for. The cardboard I was using also had glue stuck to the inside so I had to take my box cutter and carefully slide the extra glue off.
|
Critique
Compare:
In both my piece and Van Gogh's, even though the color of the hair is not natural, the audience can still look at both pieces and understand that they are looking at hair. Also the shape of the hair with the curved nature. |
Contrast:
The face in Van Gogh's piece has most of the focus and brings the audiences eyes to the center of the piece. This differs a little from my piece because my focus is towards the face since its darker but Van Gogh's piece is drawn to the face for its brightness. |
Compare:
Both faces in my work and Picasso's have some distorted aspects to them. Picasso's portrait has a sunken face that gives the appearance of flatness. My portrait lacks those same dimensions since there is only layered cardboard along the upper cheeks. The obvious connection is the use of blue to create form. |
Contrast:
I chose to use darker blues than Picasso since he actually has a lot of white in his piece. My piece also uses bright yellow and a white background where Picasso does not use any bright colors. |
Reflection
I really enjoyed using this medium since I typically do not work with sculpture. I felt like the cardboard was easy to manipulate and mold to my idea. The hardest part of this process was collecting the cardboard. A lot of the cardboard that I had collected was bright warm colors since companies use those colors to stand out and not many of them had muted cool tones. In the end I made it work but I definitely would have made the hair much larger if I had more material. Another thing I struggled with was making sure the glue was not apparent. Globs of hot glue can be seen on the face and razor but I do kind of appreciate the imperfection of the glue since my piece is about not having a perfect relationship with your hair.
ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
I am able to identify the effects that my two inspirations had on my final artwork through the movement, color, and portrait. The portrait subject has distorted proportions that look like Picasso's figure with the elongated face and I used Picasso's theme of blue in my artwork as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Humans like elements that they can see and easily understand (color) rather than the more conceptual aspects of life. But those easier elements help to understand the more complex ideas.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I came to the conclusion that sculpture is not an intimidating medium when it is viewed like a painting. I thought about cardboard not as a 3-D medium but rather like paint and canvas and that allowed me to think of this project like the ones I have done before.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
How people have impactful experiences that alter one's identity. My inspirations created this theme with the use of color and how color emphasizes the emotion being told in the experience.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made the inference that color and texture are interconnected since color is used to create the texture in artworks. In both of my art pieces the emphasis of color created the texture in the paint.
I am able to identify the effects that my two inspirations had on my final artwork through the movement, color, and portrait. The portrait subject has distorted proportions that look like Picasso's figure with the elongated face and I used Picasso's theme of blue in my artwork as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Humans like elements that they can see and easily understand (color) rather than the more conceptual aspects of life. But those easier elements help to understand the more complex ideas.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I came to the conclusion that sculpture is not an intimidating medium when it is viewed like a painting. I thought about cardboard not as a 3-D medium but rather like paint and canvas and that allowed me to think of this project like the ones I have done before.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
How people have impactful experiences that alter one's identity. My inspirations created this theme with the use of color and how color emphasizes the emotion being told in the experience.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made the inference that color and texture are interconnected since color is used to create the texture in artworks. In both of my art pieces the emphasis of color created the texture in the paint.
MLA Citation
- “---.” Van Gogh Museum, www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/art/vincent-van-gogh.
- Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp.
- “Post-Impressionism Movement Overview.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/movement/post-impressionism.
- Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp.
- “Post-Impressionism Movement Overview.” The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/movement/post-impressionism.