Triptych |
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Title: What's Today's Date?
Size: 91.44 cm x 60.96 cm (3 ft x 2 ft) Medium: Acrylic on canvas Completion: March 2018 What's Today's Date? uses symbolism to express the stress and urgency there is in urban living. Both dogs in the Triptych show conflicting emotions; outgoing and wild to unmotivated and fearful. The girl walking these dogs is a symbol of trying to control and balance these emotions as well as handling other responsibilities. The inspired style was off an American painter, Theo Dapore, who creates abstract landscapes and triptychs.
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Critical Investigation Research:
Theo Dapore is an American contemporary artist and professional painter from Elyria, Ohio. Most of his artworks consist of abstract landscapes that include a tree silhouette in the foreground and with a contrasting colorful landscape in the background. The backgrounds of his artworks vary, they may have smooth, invisible brushstrokes or clear, textural strokes. The landscapes may have realistic qualities with abnormal coloring or abstract, organic shapes that resemble one. Most of his paintings display the contrast of light and color.
Theo Dapore started painting at a young age and continues to create artworks for commissions and improvement of his techniques and skills. |
Custom Landscape painting blue red modern pattern canvas. Acrylic on canvas.
Each canvas- 10x 20in Together- 20x 30in.
Dapore, Theo. "Custom Landscape painting blue red modern pattern canvas"."Original Modern Abstract Paintings by contemporary artist Theo Dapore". Blogger. Awesome Inc. n.d. Web. http://studiodapore.blogspot.com
Dapore, Theo. "Biography". Profile, art limited, 2005-2018. Web. 12 Mar. 2018.
Each canvas- 10x 20in Together- 20x 30in.
Dapore, Theo. "Custom Landscape painting blue red modern pattern canvas"."Original Modern Abstract Paintings by contemporary artist Theo Dapore". Blogger. Awesome Inc. n.d. Web. http://studiodapore.blogspot.com
Dapore, Theo. "Biography". Profile, art limited, 2005-2018. Web. 12 Mar. 2018.
Inspiration:
After I saw Theo Dapore's landscapes, I wanted to use his style when painting the background of my triptych. I knew I wanted my background to resemble a sunset, which would hopefully enhance the feeling of urgency; the sun is setting and you need to get home with your dogs, one's out of control and the other one won't move. His backgrounds have a sense of surrealism. They are very realistic but in colors not usually seen in real life. he also uses heavy contrasting and patterns when painting on three canvases. The outside canvases in "Red white tree original" have a red ground and a white sky while the middle canvas has a white ground and a red sky.
Meaning of the Piece- I tried to create the triptych in a way that it'll speak for itself but it may be difficult to understand due to the style I painted in. The first panel (from left to right) displays a wild dog, leaping and desperate to run and be free. The second and middle panel shows a person holding two leashes which are attached to the dogs, straining to keep them together and controlled. And finally the third panel on the right displays a sad, sluggish dog who has no energy to go on unlike the first dog. All in all, this whole triptych is suppose to display the struggle to control emotions and the confusion but also hope that the owner of the dogs will be able to.
http://studiodapore.blogspot.com/2010/09/landscape-abstract-art-345-orange.html
http://studiodapore.blogspot.com/2011/01/
http://studiodapore.blogspot.com/2011/01/
Planning:
I wanted my Triptych to be a work of pure symbolism. I came up with an idea when I thought of the requirements of the paintings: How you view yourself as an artist, how you affect the community and how the community affects you. I thought of an urban setting of someone walking dogs, but one dog is dragging behind while the other is trying to race ahead. The person walking the dogs is struggling to keep up and drag the other dog behind her.
I had made sketches before I did this, but I wanted my final sketch to be scaled with my canvases. I did this by converting the measurements of the canvas (1 ft x 2 ft) to make them fit on my sketchbook so I could transfer the final sketch from the sketchbook to the canvas with accuracy. |
Since this art piece will be a painting, I planned on painting the background before anything else to make the process easier. I found Theo Dapore to be my inspiration. I tried to imitate his style of blending colors to create a color gradation to look like a sunset/sunrise. It was very difficult, but I used a bristly brush with a little paint on the end, and would use circular motions into the canvas to mix the colors together. When I transitioned from the orange into the red, it was very hard to make a smooth transition. Later on in this process, I decided as you look from left to right of the Triptych, the blue in the sunset will increasingly get wider symbolizing the sun setting.
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Planning Sketches: The planning sketches were very difficult for me to draw. I couldn't grasp the perspective. At first, I was trying to draw the image in one perspective but it didn't look exactly proportional. It was hard for me to draw the dogs in correlation to the position of the person and the ground. Then, I tried to draw it in a worm's eye view. But that didn't turn out right either. The canvases would have to be taller or the figures in the painting would have had to been way smaller in order for it to be in worm's eye view.
After trying these perspectives, I finally decided to do two-point perspective. It turned out nicely in my opinion so I decided to stick with it.
After trying these perspectives, I finally decided to do two-point perspective. It turned out nicely in my opinion so I decided to stick with it.
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I used techniques I learned for perspective from the project assigned by MIAD; My two vanishing points were off the page. I also decided on having a design within the painting, originally, I was going to paint a realistic background with a fence and street and car but I decided to just outline the sidewalk in black and have the person with the two dogs like that.
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Process:
To begin, I had to create the canvases. It was allowed to have three canvases all 1ft x 2ft so that was the measurements of the wooden frame planks I used. After slipping the planks together, which were cut at both ends of the wood for that purpose, I rolled out canvas and carefully stapled it to the boards making sure the canvas was loose enough but not too loose to create 3 1ft x 2ft canvases.
First Panel
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I had not planned on which panel I wanted what at the beginning of the project, but this panel ending up having the sad dog on it. The story behind this dog is a sad, depressed and hopeless dog who contrasts to the other dog I would paint on the panel closest to the left.
At first, I was experimenting with what colors I wanted to use. At the start, I had very contrasting value of colors; it went from dark blue/black at the top to bright yellow at the bottom. But, after observing sunsets and rises, I realized how small my figures would have to be if I wanted my sky to include so many colors. But, on the other hand, the sunset was also symbolism so it didn't exactly have to look realistic. Most of Theo Dapore's art consists of surreal landscapes which I was trying to go for.
I had difficulty when painting because the wooden frame would poke out of the canvas and cause paint to start trailing upwards and downwards where I didn't want it to go. To avoid this, I started painting more lightly and sometimes lifting the canvas off the wooden frame from the back in order to paint.
After awhile, I began to work on the other panels and as I worked on them, I realized I wanted my background to look different. So, I painted over most of the yellow and red with orange to better fit the look of the other canvases. After I done this, It was time to start on the dog. I started the dog with an impressionist type of painting with small, repeated brushstrokes. After awhile, the strokes began to look like fur. I realized how squished I made the dog face and so I extended it out farther to the left a little. It was actually very difficult for me to paint his face; I didn't know how big to make his snout or his mouth and eyes. I used pictures of Chow Chow's as a reference which really helped. I don't draw animals very well which is something I have to practice more.
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Second Panel
I started the second panel after I applied the first few colors of the first panel. I made clouds after painting half of the canvas orange. I did this by dipping the tips of a bristly paint brush in white paint so there was barely any paint on the brush, then dabbed some on the canvas in the shape of a cloud. To make it look soft, I made a fast, circular motion with the paint brush.
Then, I started to blend all of the colors together by painting in a side to side motion across the canvas. When the background was finally complete after adding the lighter blue, I moved onto painting the person.
Since I had not completely finished any of my planning sketches, it was difficult to determine how the girl would look when I was painting her. So, I painted her as if I was sketching on paper, I moved the paint brush in a way you would sketch knowing you could erase all of the lines you don't want, only this was paint and I couldn't erase anything I could any paint over. This was challenging because as I developed her silhouette and her shape, I kept having to shave off and paint over the black I made with shades of orange. I did not always use the right orange either and I had to go back and fix it.
I aligned my first panel to my second panel to continue the black outline of the sidewalk. After I had developed her silhouette, I took a little bit of yellow at the end of my paintbrush and around her shape, starting to create value from the light behind her. I made strokes for the ends and wrinkles of her clothing and also on her skin, which I did after creating the third panel.
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I decided on making it a girl. Before I began painting her, I had to line up the perspective of the sidewalk on the first panel with the sad dog to this panel. I used a T-square to align the side walk on the first panel to the next. While holding the T-square up to the canvas, I used a small, flat paintbrush and went along the edge of the ruler trying to keep the line straight.
Third Panel
For the third panel the idea is having a very excited, wild dog to represent the contrasting emotion the owner of the dog has compared to her other dog. This was the most difficult panel to paint. I don't usually draw animals, so I practiced before creating the final product. I used reference pictures of dogs running to help me also.
First, like the other two canvases, I started off with blending in the background. Only because this was the third time doing so, I knew which colors I needed so I didn't have to re-proportion the amount of one color I wanted for the background. The only problem I had was using the wrong blue and having to paint over it with a lighter one. Next, I already aligned my sidewalk with the other canvases so all that was left was the dog. I regret not working harder when I was doing my planning sketches because this dog was very difficult for me to draw. I first drew out the basic outline of it and then like the girl, drew the rest of the dog using paint. But, i had to guess where the dog's limbs would go and see if that looked right proportionally. If not, then like the girl I had to go over the mistakes with orange.
When I finished outlining the dog, I filled in it's silhouette with black. I didn't do the shading with the yellow along the outline of the dog the same way as I did for the girl, instead, I tried to dab it on as I did for the first dog on the first panel I did. I was getting very impatient by the time I got to this point in the process because I wasn't satisfied with how the whole piece turned out. I wanted it to be more detailed with maybe a street behind them in the same style I did the sidewalk.
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Reflection:
The Triptych was both fun to do but also challenging at some points. I really enjoyed painting the landscape, I thought the colors I was blending for the sunset were very pretty and would hopefully catch the attention of a viewer. Although, I wish I was more patient when creating the landscape since in some areas you can see the colors aren't blended smoothly enough and there'll be an obvious line between orange and dark orange.
When I drew the figures, I see now that I should have taken more time to finish the planning sketches so it would've been easier and faster to paint them on the canvases. I also would've liked if I made a street landscape in the background using the same line design I used for the sidewalk.
Compared to Theo Dapore's art, my background does not have that bright, pristine gradation of colors as in Dapore's 'Abstract landscape 345' where you cannot exactly see an obvious line between oranges and reds and yellows.
When I drew the figures, I see now that I should have taken more time to finish the planning sketches so it would've been easier and faster to paint them on the canvases. I also would've liked if I made a street landscape in the background using the same line design I used for the sidewalk.
Compared to Theo Dapore's art, my background does not have that bright, pristine gradation of colors as in Dapore's 'Abstract landscape 345' where you cannot exactly see an obvious line between oranges and reds and yellows.
ACT Questions:
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The way I focused on blending the colors of the landscape was inspired by the style of Theo Dapore, my inspiration.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author was usually the painter himself regarding himself as semi professional artist who sells art.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I discovered that a great amount of people enjoy abstract and colorful paintings and will buy from people like Theo Dapore.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme was trees and abstract landscapes.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
As I was researching about my inspiration, I inferred how paintings in his style are popular and highly valued.
The way I focused on blending the colors of the landscape was inspired by the style of Theo Dapore, my inspiration.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author was usually the painter himself regarding himself as semi professional artist who sells art.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I discovered that a great amount of people enjoy abstract and colorful paintings and will buy from people like Theo Dapore.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme was trees and abstract landscapes.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
As I was researching about my inspiration, I inferred how paintings in his style are popular and highly valued.