Wise Woman Size: Three 30.48cm x 60.96cm canvases Medium: Acrylic on canvas April 2016
Exhibition
This triptych was inspired by surrealist painter, Octavio Ocampo. The three paintings have to do with avoiding the evil in the society that we live in today. A major struggle was figuring out which positions to have the paintings in. A success was achieving the meaning that I desired as well as creating clean straight lines as well as clean gradients.
Inspiration Surrealism Octavio Ocampo
Ocampo, Octavio. Passion of the Lilies. N.d. N.p.
I immediately was inspired by the metamorphism that Ocampo did within his paintings. He painted pictures by morphing other things into a brand new picture. I was intrigued not only because it is interesting, but because it is beautiful. The woman has an expression on her face that is fierce and it intrigued me even more. The way the leaves mold her hair and the calla lilies mold her face, it is so delicate but so strong at the same time. I wanted to incorporate this idea and portray myself in this way. Then, I started brainstorming and thinking about what I wanted to display to show who I am as an artist. This piece was a triptych, therefore I began to think about 3 concepts that were related to one another as well as to me. It then came to me... I thought about the three wise monkeys.
Ocampo, Octavio. Woman of Substance. 1943. Watercolor on paper. N.p.
Ocampo, Octavio. Ecstasy of the Lilies. N.d. Water color on paper. N.p.
Meaning
"Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety."
pro·pri·e·ty : the state or quality of conforming to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals.
I decided to use the saying above because it speaks volumes to who I am as a person and also as a student. In high school, everyone aspires to be the same type of person: smart, beautiful/handsome, popular, athletic, etc. It seems as if everyone aspires to be this intelligent well-dressed, popular person, and that's never really been me. I have always aspired to be myself even though I know that it is not the "normal" way of being. Conforming to society and changing who I am in front of others is something that I've never felt comfortable doing because that would be compromising who I am. I refuse to listen to the demands of society saying that I should be more proper, or dress more like a girl, act more like a girl, be less athletic because that is not what women do. I am a woman who had a tomboy side and who isn't afraid to let the world know that. I hear no, speak no, and see no evil demands of society.
I am comfortable with who I am as a person as well as an artist, my ideas and concepts are unorthodox but that is what draws me to them even more. The thoughts and opinions of others do not effect the way I hear, speak, or see life around me.
My community does not effect me negatively because I refuse to conform to average ways that compromise who I am. However, the positive ways of my community have molded me to be who I am, which is why i am formed from flowers.
I affect my city to a certain extent, however I do not allow myself to feed the evil that was meant for me, back into society. I choose to reflect positivity where I see evil.
Sketches
I knew the end result that I wanted, however I did not know the exact positions that I'd have the women in. I therefore began to sketch and came up with the following sketches that eventually turned into the paintings that I'd create.
Painting
Building Canvases + Gesso
First I built 3 canvases which were 2 feet by 1 foot long (0.6 meters by 0.3 meters). I used wood pieces that were pre-cut and pre-measured and stapled them together. I then used scrap pieces of canvas and wrapped it around the wood frame. I stapled the canvas to wood while stretching it. I used a hammer to make sure that all of the staples laid flat into the wood frame. After building those three, I used gesso to tighten and harden the canvas material so that it would be easier and more efficient to paint on.
Painting the background
I decided to change the colors up instead of using the same exact colors that Ocampo used to make it more unique and also to make it visually more appealing to myself. Instead of using blues and greens, I decided to use reds, yellows, and greens in order to brighten the piece as well as make it warmer. I decided to do an ombre effect which faded the colors from green to yellow to orange which felt much warmer intrigued me to change more things throughout the piece.
Painting the Actual Pieces
After drawing lines to guide my piece, I simply started to paint by looking at my reference picture that I created on Photoshop in order to change the colors from cool to warm. I attempted to blend a bit in the beginning stages of the painting using yellow and white in the flowers to resemble the painting that I used as my inspiration as well as to create dimension. It got a bit frustrating after a while, I then moved onto painting in the hair and I figured I'd go back to blending after I had all of the bigger pieces painted.
After painting the bigger pieces, I started to blend the lilies using green and red. I did not like the red after stepping back to get a better glance, I then used orange on top of the red and got a rich shade of red-orange which I loved.
This was the first piece that I painted which I used to essentially experiment. I initially incorporated red, yellow, and shades of orange into the flowers because I thought that it fit best. However, when I began to paint the other two paintings, I figured that I wanted the flowers to be more white. I then had to repaint a few of the flowers, but I'm happy that I did because the results were better than ever.
This piece was easier than the first one that I painted because at that point I had become more comfortable blending and painting the lines and all around essentially. Blending the yellow in the flowers seemed much easier and to blend them I watered down the white and yellow paints in order to make them blend together more easily. Initially I painted the pot green but I felt that it clashed too much with the green in the background, I then opted for a brown flower pot and I was much more pleased with that. This is the piece that set the tone for the other two, it determined the colors and style (even though I had already started on one of them).
This was the final painting that I worked on and was the most easy one to paint because of what I'd already accomplished on the other two. This painting also didn't contain as many flowers which was easy because I had to only blend the face and the two flowers underneath. I think this one was my favorite because of the red leaves and the small flowers surrounding the head. It was different than the others but I loved it. I struggled a bit with the flower on the right lower hand side but I got through it pretty well I'd say.
Reflection
I enjoyed making the pieces even though they were very time consuming and complicated. The meaning behind my pieces I think is clearly conveyed and easy to understand which is always the biggest goal of mine. At first I didn't know how I was going to tackle these paintings but I eventually figured out that by simply starting to paint, I would just figure it out as I went along.