Artistic Inspiration:
For my artistic inspiration, I was inspired by the work of Expressionist artist, Emil Nolde. Nolde was a member of the Die Brücke movement, which would later be known as German Expressionism, but left to do work on his own. For this project, I was specifically drawn to his piece, Masks Still Life III. As soon as I saw this piece, I had already created what I wanted to do in my mind and how the finished piece would look like. In this piece, Emil Nolde wanted to capture a variety of cultures, for he was interested in non-Western cultures. For example in this piece, a shrunken head of a Yoruna Indian from Brazil is seen in the lower right of the painting. Nolde's use of culture is not only seen in this painting, but in many of his other pieces, for he was very interested in indigenous tribes and wanted to apply these other cultures into his work. This was something I wanted to do but instead apply Mexican culture to my painting.
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Citation:
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Cultural Inspiration:
As for cultural inspiration, I was inspired by Mexican culture. Even though I'm Mexican-American, I've never really done a piece that ties back into my background. For this piece, I decided to look at festivities, events, etc. that used masks or face-paint in Mexican culture. I had background knowledge on some, like how people paint their faces as skulls for Day of the Dead, and how usually in the past in Lucha Libre (Mexican wrestling), the wrestlers usually wear masks that cover their face/head to conceal their true identity. I then started to do more research and found that in Mexican culture, payasos (clowns) are very popular not only for kid's parties, but in television and other media as well.
Process:
1.) I began my piece by making and stretching out my canvas first (the size was 60.96 x 91.44 cm).
2.) After doing that, I made my background color. I wasn't sure what colors I should use to make the background color that I thought of in my head, so I mixed colors that I thought I would need, so I mixed in black, blue, white. and brown. 3.) After my background was painted, I began to draw the masks on my canvas before going into painting them right away. 4.) Once I finished drawing my masks, I began to paint the first mask (the wrestling mask) with the Mexican flag's colors of red, white, and blue. 5.) After completing that, I began to paint my next mask (the clown) with white, black, and red colors. I chose these and the design of the mask to make it look more creepy. 6.) I continued to paint my next two masks (a skull and another clown mask) using the colors blue, black and yellow for one, and yellow, red and orange for the other. 7.) Lastly, I repainted some of the masks to make it more bold. |
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Experimentation:
For my experimentation, I experimented with color choices and brush strokes. For my background color, I wasn't sure exactly what color I wanted, all I know was that it had to be a dark color so it can fit with Nolde's style in his piece. So I mixed in blue, white, green, and some black. After adding certain amounts of each color in a container, I liked the color and chose the color as my background. Once my background dried, I began to think about what color I should use for my different brush strokes. I then decided that it should be similar to colors that I had used for my background, so I mixed blue and green again, but this time instead of black and white, I used brown and yellow. It ended up coming out looking like a green shade, and so I used this shade, but I also wanted different shades of green so I mixed this shade with white or black, or some other color. For my brush strokes, I wasn't sure how I would be able to blend the strokes well like Nolde, since his piece was made with oil, and so I just painted different strokes with different colors and eventually I decided to make multiple brash brush strokes with different shades of green.
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Sketches:
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The sketches I created were made to fit with what I wanted to achieve with my final piece. My first sketch is a clown mask, with bold features and laughing. By leaving the eye sockets empty and the mouth wide open, I wanted to create that creepy look that Nolde had done with his piece. For my second sketch, I drew another clown mask, but this time I drew it differently, and had the mask stretched out to demonstrate the distorted features Nolde also did in his piece. My third sketch is a lucha mask, and I wanted to showcase my Mexican culture by painting the mask with the Mexican flag's colors of red, white. and green. My forth sketch is of a skull. I colored half of it with a colored pencil (purple), just to get a sense of what it would look like if I had painted it that color. I then added some details on the face and head like flowers, and shaded them. My last sketch is of another skull, and I made it to look like it was laughing. This skull was colored in red, to make it appear more bold than if it were just a pencil sketch.
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Meaning Behind the Piece:
The meaning behind my piece is to showcase small parts of my Mexican culture through masks/faces associated with my culture. I wanted the painting to display pieces of my culture, and so to do that I painted masks and faces that are usually seen in my culture like the lucha masks, the Day of the Dead skull, and the payaso (clown) masks. The distortion seen in a few of the masks is what ties into the style Emil Nolde used in his pieces, and I wanted to use this style since his piece, Masks Still Life III, displays non-Western culture like Brazil, but in a different way of looking at it which is what I wanted to do.
Reflection:
After completing the project, I looked at my finished piece and felt that it was what I had wanted to accomplish. I didn't plan for some things to show up in my piece, but decided to leave it in my piece since I thought it fit more with Nolde's style. For example, for the white clown mask, I hadn't planned on having the head stretch out to the top of the canvas, originally it was suppose to be hung by two painted white strings, but I kept painting the strings over and over again, that I ended up deciding to paint the whole thing and made it seem stretched out. I had some difficulty with this project since I had procrastinated this piece for months. Every few weeks or so, I would paint or add on to my canvas. Normally I would work on it at least every day for an hour or so, but I didn't do that for this project. I wanted to add at least two more masks but I didn't have enough time to paint them. I also had difficulty with two of the masks that I had painted. The first being my lucha mask, for I had trouble in how to make it look recognizable, while also tying it into Nolde's style. In the end, the mask looks less distorted than the other masks. The second mask I had difficulty with was the orange laughing clown mask. I wanted to make the mask orange because Mexico is known for its warm temperatures, and I wanted to show that by using a warm paint color such as orange. I created the orange color but once I started to paint on the canvas, the background could still be seen through the paint. I painted layer after layer to cover the background, and this took a long time to do since I had to wait for the layer to dry so I could put another layer over it. Some successes with this project were me being able to somewhat fit Nolde's style into my painting, finishing my painting with what I wanted to accomplish, and the brush strokes used in the background.
Connecting to the ACT:
1.) The artistic inspirations for my work effected my artwork by me trying to use the techniques they had used in theirs. In my piece I attempted to use the style of work Emil Nolde had done, but use acrylic paint instead of oil. I used this technique instead because I was more comfortable with this type of paint than oil.
2.) The overall approach Nolde wanted to show in his piece was the colorfulness present within these non-Western cultures. His approach was to also show how the colors affect the viewer, for different emotions can be felt when viewing the painting.
3.) While researching Nolde, the conclusion I've come to make is that Nolde has a high interest in different cultures around the world. This conclusion is evident in his Masks Still Life III painting, for he admits to using non-Western cultures like Brazil.
4.) The central idea around my inspirations was that culture can be seen or interpreted in different ways. When someone usually mentions a culture, they get some sort of picture as to what's inside or involved in that culture. Nolde changes that view by distorting certain aspects of that culture, or by using certain brush strokes to make the piece appear more bold, or even the colors that are being used.
5.) Some inferences that I reached while doing my research was that Emil Nolde was not only interested in painting different cultures, but also different emotions. In his piece Excited People, this can be clearly seen by the expressions on the people's faces. However, the faces of the people seem to be opposite of what the title suggests, for their expressions show emotion but not excitement.
2.) The overall approach Nolde wanted to show in his piece was the colorfulness present within these non-Western cultures. His approach was to also show how the colors affect the viewer, for different emotions can be felt when viewing the painting.
3.) While researching Nolde, the conclusion I've come to make is that Nolde has a high interest in different cultures around the world. This conclusion is evident in his Masks Still Life III painting, for he admits to using non-Western cultures like Brazil.
4.) The central idea around my inspirations was that culture can be seen or interpreted in different ways. When someone usually mentions a culture, they get some sort of picture as to what's inside or involved in that culture. Nolde changes that view by distorting certain aspects of that culture, or by using certain brush strokes to make the piece appear more bold, or even the colors that are being used.
5.) Some inferences that I reached while doing my research was that Emil Nolde was not only interested in painting different cultures, but also different emotions. In his piece Excited People, this can be clearly seen by the expressions on the people's faces. However, the faces of the people seem to be opposite of what the title suggests, for their expressions show emotion but not excitement.