Concentration Piece No.1/Gasparilla Final

Subject: There are three heads in this piece. The complete head is purple and centered off to the left side, while there is a profile dark blue head with a blue stripe on the right side, looking off to the left. In addition, there is another smaller dark green profile head placed on top of the blue one and is looking off to the right. These three heads are placed on a burnt orange background that gets darker as it goes away from the heads. Encompassing this piece is a golden frame, adding to the color blocking used.

Technique: This piece was made with acrylic paints. There is an emphasis on the subject of the heads, as they are placed on a plain background. The technique of color blocking was used, as every color is only used once and has a purpose. A smooth texture was also used while painting. Line in this piece was used with the blue stripe used on the dark blue head and was also considered while creating the silhouettes. Moreover, a layering technique was used on the two heads on the right side in order to create some interest in the painting.

Symbolism: This piece was meant to be more abstract. With that, I decided to use heads because many people use different masks to hide with they truly are. These faces are completely covered with their color choice to show how sometimes people cover up their emotions and who they truly are. Besides that though, I did not have much meaning behind this piece and was often stuck on what to do next with it. I mainly just wanted to try out a new style of art that I have not done before. Moreover, when I worked at Kahwa Coffee, we often featured different artists of the month. There was a painting that caught my eye by MO Knows called “Credence Clearwater Revival”. Ever since I saw that painting, I wanted to try out something in a similar style.

Space and light: For the spacing of this piece, there are two heads that are layered on top of each other on the right side. The green head is smaller and centered off to the right bottom of the blue head in order to create more depth and interest in this piece. The purple head on the left side is slightly bigger than the other two and was left alone. A light source can be seen behind the heads, as it is lighter orange around the heads and then blends out to a burnt orange as the background.

Historical: When creating this piece, Leonardo Da Vinci’s, “La Bella Principessa”, was used to help better define facial silhouettes that could be used as a reference. His work helped to show the different sizes and shapes of lips, the chin, the forehead, and the nose in order to create a similar silhouette for the two side profile heads in this piece.

Personal: This piece is probably the most abstract painting that I have done. I have not worked with the idea of color blocking, and so I wanted to try it out. For this piece I had a concept in my head that wasn’t fully executed in the way that I hoped, though I do not dislike what this piece came to be. I feel that this piece could be redone to use colors that work better together, as well as adding more to this piece to make it more interesting. I am overall okay with how this piece came out, though I would like to redo it or do a similar piece to see how I could make it better because a lot of the time when I was doing this piece I didn’t really know what to do or add.