the world i live in evaluation

During the summer I don’t believe I managed my time very well as I mainly added to it every so often and unfortunately toward the end of the summer I rushed to get it done as best as I could. If I had the opportunity to redo this project I would look over the brief carefully broaden my ideas for the world I live in and manage my time more effectively. The contents of my sketchbook was mainly focused on the things people and places closest to me, at first when starting this project I wanted to draw and paint portraits of family members and pets as well as include as much media as I could. Over this project I have looked into primary and secondary research I also included some observational drawings mainly in my sketchbook. My primary research was key to my project I have used my own images to further develop my work eventually focusing on my pets as a final design. On my design sheets I used an image of my pet dog and painted/ drew  her with as much media as possible. I incorporated the style of Lucien Freud into my piece I really liked the look of it being painted this way and so I continued to use it all throughout my design development sheets and eventually my final piece. For my samples I looked at mainly paint including gouache and acrylic I also attempted a cross stitch piece as well, I painted on to mdf board and on one canvas to test the gouache on and I preferred working on to the mdf with the gouache as It applied more smoothly.

On the design development I tried using pencil acrylic paint watercolour and pen I had looked at an artist that worked in cross hatching and I thought it would be good to link it back to that. My main issue was time as I was unable to finish the cross stitch that was a part of my samples but as I didn’t take anything from it I don’t think it would’ve affected my final piece though I wish I could’ve been able to finish. The problem I think mainly was that my threads for the cross stitch would get knotted and I think I lost a lot of time attempting to unravel them.

If I had more time I would have experimented more with oil paint as I haven’t yet managed to work with that media on a project so far and I would like to learn some new techniques with it, also I would have liked to include more colour in my project so that I could have linked that back to the Freda Kahlo painting I critiqued. For my final design I decided to paint my dog coco unfortunately in 2014 during my exam period she became ill and we had to have her put down, it was quite emotional when we lost her and I thought that If I did a painting of her it would link into the world I live in because she was alive for twelve years and that was a large portion of my life not only was she quite important to me she was always very photogenic and I like this photo of her very much.

Over this project the main issue has been time but I am happy with a lot of things like my artist research I think my paintings of the originals were quite good and I enjoyed replicating them so they were almost identical to the original. I also believe that my design development sheets went well too, I think I managed to use more media in this project and it has helped me gain painting skills and has drawn me away from using the same basic media I always have used for my artwork. The only thing that hasn’t really worked out well is the cross stitch but that was mainly because of poor time management. If given the opportunity to have another try I would look more on the broader aspect of the world I live in perhaps looking into the Syrian crisis or perhaps draw portraits of the leaders of the world or look into charities and symbolism, I might have looked at religion or how social media is affecting the world I live in and what it is doing to the next generation as well as the older generation.

During this project I haven’t managed my time well enough and have suffered because of that, I was unable to complete my cross stitch which I am disheartened by after days of trying to get it completed, hopefully in the future I will have the opportunity to finish it and be happy about it eventually. My sketchbook has also suffered because of my poor time management skills having rushed myself toward the end I felt I could’ve done much better than what I did, it was also incredibly difficult trying to think about what to put into it. As well as poor time management I neglected my blog quite a lot I have added some things but I haven’t put everything I should have put on there.

Overall I think this is my favourite project so far I enjoyed creating the samples although after a while of doing the same image over and over and over it got a bit boring though I do like my final piece albeit the background is a little too colourful for the foreground. I like the noble stance the subject appears to have and it gives seeps silence, when you look at the painting it makes you feel quite at peace and has a calm to it that I believe is because of the eyes the dark yellow colour of the eyes make it as though she’s looking into you. In my sketchbook there is a portrait of my grandma done in oil pastel which I am extremely proud of because it was my first time using that media on a portrait.