Adding Age to a Portrait

                                                          By Lauren Davis
 
Opposite of my last post, an equally difficult task is portraying realistic age in portrait the delicate balance of highlight and shadows is crucial when creating believable wrinkles and contours. Author Jack Hamm recommends keeping in mind a number of things including the ear length, drooping eyelids, and lines in the forehead. (Hamm 38)  I decided to draw this one based off of a photo due to my lack of experience in the technique. In honor of the new season, I based mine off of a photo of Peter Capaldi, the 12th doctor on BBC's Doctor Who. This is my drawing.

The Example Photo

  Step 1- The Outline and Winkle Lines

The outline of a person changes a deceptively large amount with age. Hamm said "The flesh drops at the jowls and the chin bone protrudes."(Hamm, 38) I started by outlining the face keeping these facts in mind. Afterwards I drew up the shape of the hair and drew the contours for all the wrinkles. It is important to keep the anatomy correct wile doing this. Hamm recommends focusing on sinking the eyes, thinning the lips and adding lifework to the forehead.(Hamm 38) It is okay to make the lines darken then usual guide lines because you will need to add highlights surrounding them.

                                  Step 2-  The Shading and Highlights

The most difficult part of shading wrinkles
for me is preserving the desired skin tone.

I happened to choose a pale British man for my model, so it is important to add light between the shadows. I blended out the wrinkles with my finger and then erased the pencil marking on both sides of them. Afterwards, I lightly added in the darker parts of the face with a duller pencil. Notice along with the face, the neck has different shading then other pictures. Hamm reminds an artist, "The neck becomes gaunt making the skin hang in drapes." (Hamm, 39) I tried to incorporate this into the picture. 

                                 Step 3- The Hair and Finishing Touches

                                    

I happened to choose one of only pictures of this actor where he didn't have messy hair. I tried to incorporate the contours of his light grey hair in the drawing. Wile the author reminds that the hair usually thins with age, Peter Capaldi doesn't seem to have this problem. (Hamm, 38) After I got the hair to a good place, I added depth to the eyes, shadows to the hair and color to the outfit. Then the piece was complete.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I like the way this came out. I liked the books advise, but wish it had more unique help for problems that spring along the way. I disappointed at some of the obvious and self-explanatory tips. So what do you think? Do you use any of these methods or do you have your own? Leave it in the comments below. 🔹

                                                            Citations 

Hamm, Jack. Drawing the Head and Figure. Time Warner International, 1963.

“The 12th Doctor .” The Mary Sue , The Mary Sue , www.themarysue.com/peter-capaldi-plays-doctor-one-last-time/.

Appearances VS Internal Interpretation

Many times, art can reflect nature and human interactions on a daily basis. Art has been a hobby of mine that helps me let go and forget about everything around me. Whenever I paint, I think about life and how I make decisions. I know that sounds quite odd, but this is how I find meaningful interpretations when painting and relating the artwork to life lessons. I like to believe that paintings reflect what humans do, think, feel, and react to events around them.

For my next three paintings I created, I used the idea of traits and personalities an individual may have. The paintings are inspired by a few of my daily routines or thoughts I had during school, watching television, thinking about past events, etc. Each painting has its own lesson; I have learned and how it connects to not only me but other people as well. Those who have gone through a series of event to find who they are as an individual would understand and be able to relate to my paintings.

Blown Away

This painting is quite simple. Not many details are emphasized here to show enough meaning behind a dandelion.

As I kid, I loved blowing the petals off in the summer time. They petals reminded me of snow or fluffy clouds.




I used tape to divide the two pictures on the canvas to show difference in a full dandelion and one being blown by the wind. The dandelion on the left is full, strong, and proud. While the dandelion on the right is weak, falling apart, and self-conscious. To me, this picture represents both sides to a person; one with both their friends and family and one when they are by themselves. If you cannot relate then think of the picture as reality. We all try to act strong and cool on the outside when we are at school, or with family. On the inside, we are weak, we could snap any moment, and we are hiding our true selves from everyone because we do not want to be judged for being who we are.

As I was painting this, I came across multiple interpretations as to what this painting could mean. If it were to relate to my personal life, it would have been a lesson for me. I am a very emotional and sensitive person. I have been through life events that have shaped me in multiple ways. Being cyber bullied when I was younger, family issues, friendships, and my own barriers I made for myself to climb over. Going through all these conflicts I have learned one thing, Don't let people, events, or even your own fears define who you are as a person, you must live life working hard to earn every single penny you get thrown at you to realize you are worth everything to those who truly love you. So  the second half of the dandelion is showing that you must cover up your weak side and make sure that your bold personality will soon over power through the wind of emotions.

Mixing Colors 

This picture is simply just showing how I blended the colors while making this painting. I used four shades of blue and black from the bottom to gradually show the colors from light, dark, to pitch black. 

Brush Effect

Once I finished creating the background, I decided to add a mist of fog to create suspense in the scenery. 

For those of you artist out there, I know this technique of using the brush is breaking the hairs, but this is the best way to get misty and foggy detailing from the brush.

The final piece of artwork looks amazing doesn't it? 

You may be wondering what the night sky many represent. However, all I can say is darkness. 

OF COURSE, THE PAINTING IS NOT COMPLETE! 

As I continue to finish the painting, I used acrylic paint but added a little water to create a more shiny and watercolor like texture. I wanted the paint to be able to fall off the brush easily so it can create nice detailing when it drops on the canvas. I just tapped and flicked the middle part of my paintbrush to get the splatter effect on to the canvas.

Do you notice the major difference from the final product?

Don't worry, I didn't ruin my painting, I reinvented a new meaning in our lives as we think about why and what we live for. This painting shows every sign of perfections and hate at the same time. It also shows hope.


The splattering of the paint shows aggression, I clearly must have been mad about something. The original dark, and foggy night shows and gives off a vibe of mystery, danger, and confusion. That's a state you don't ever want to be in, so I trashed it. The Moon in the top right corner is the only part that was not hit or splattered with paint.

Why? Because the sign of a bright moon shows hope, renewal, and light. We all need that to push ourselves through hard and complicated moments in our lives to continue living our dreams. I tend to get lost and drown in my thoughts of sorrow during midnight when I can't sleep. This painting reflects my deep thoughts at night, but the next day I still show up at school. School can be dreadful, but we all still come to learn and be with friends. My future, my life, and my friends, are represented as the bright moon. The dark and foggy night represent my thoughts, my fears, and the ocean I mentally drown in with all my insecurities. Splattering that paint or ruining something in the way of your career and your pathway is something you should think about when you want to give up. Don't let something feed on your mind at night and realize that there is so much out there with a bright future ahead. One of the paintings in the book I'm reading, The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at American Contemporary Art By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan had a painting that had splatters of paint all over the canvas.

Jackson Pollock, (Lavender Mist 1950) 

The book claims that, "Lavender Mist...beckons to be touched because the paint is so gloppy and gritty.in this detail the intricate web of lines are so shiny that they still look et. Sensing whether the surface is rough or smooth, grainy or gossamer continues to our feelings about the painting." (Greenberg and Jordan 30)






Using this idea, the splatters of paint on my personal artwork shows aggression and conflict because of how much is going on in one picture.

As for my last painting, I found this one to be very interesting. Of course, out of all these paintings on this blog, I find this one the most pleasing as it was not too hard to paint or think about.

Locked Emotions

 This is the complete painting of a volcano before and eruption and during an eruption. I had tape in between the paintings to show a break of difference.

Volcanoes are quite unpredictable, they blow up whenever they want to and sleep for thousands of years.







I'm a volcano. I hold things in, emotions, feelings, thoughts, words, and everything that comes to mind. I keep things to myself because I prefer not to be a burden to some by chewing their ear off with something they may find useless. Eventually, when it's time, I will blow up and cry for hours, days, nights, and continue to disrupt my train of thought. I believe many of us are volcanoes, once we keep holding back ourselves from doing something, we will scream, shot, run, and do whatever it takes to feel relieved. In fact, I was inspired while watching Disney channel. I'll admit I still watch kids shows but, as I was scrolling through the channels, I stopped on "Girl Meets World". Now I find this show quite straightforward and cheesy most the time, but I actually like the meaning behind the episode. The episode was about a friendship that has changed one of the friends because of how much they are around one another. She changed and became like her friend because she was influenced by her daily. She goes find her true self by trying to explode and throw a fit. She 'explodes' and does an illegal act but puts a special meaning as to what their friendship means, that they give each other hope. She had locked in her own thoughts and feelings so long; she had to express herself in a way that showed she had her own flare even with the influence of her friend.

For the detailing of the painting, I used once again, the stippling effect with the back of an eraser to create a textured look of green trees surrounding the volcano to express the beauty of the volcano when it's dormant.

An interpretation of this would be the volcano hides their own personality that the people around it trust the volcano to stay dormant.

I used a sponge that is typically used for mod-podge to create a textured look on the volcano erupting. I had dots of red and orange paint on the volcano and used the sponge to press down to create spotted looks against the rock.


The colors I chose are not only realistic, but they have a lot of meaning behind the surroundings for the volcanoes setting. The book states that,
 "Dark and light colors and how they relate to bright or dull colors is one way to define contrast in art. Colors are opposites, such as red and green, purple and yellow, or orange and blue, are called complementary colors...Artists take advantage of all the technical ways to use colors" (Greenberg and Jordan 32)



Meaning that the green represented, trees, happiness, comfort, when the volcano was dormant. While the red represented, death, excitement, danger, and it expressed tragedy.

Although the book did not help me with my imagination and painting ideas, the techniques I used were stated in the text.

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print.

Overall, I feel that my interpretation of art has gotten stronger. I am able to paint without thinking of what to paint ahead of time and come up with multiple interpretations. Now I can think of interpretations after I paint something or find something more open to critical thinking when it comes to my surroundings.

Do you have any suggestions on what I should paint or focus on? 

If I told you to interpret and connect all of my paintings above to life, what would you have thought of? 

Leave a comment down below! (: 

Reality of time lapse similarities

Personality wise, I believe we can improve to be a better version of ourselves. I don't believe that we can change because we always have habits and reflexes when it comes to certain actions or thoughts we make.  From my perspective, I feel I used to be a selfish, rude, and cynical person as a kid. After going through so many life experiences, I "turned over a new leaf" and now I am more selfless, kind and thoughtful towards others. For this post, I decided to not only show some techniques and the process of my paintings, but to also incorporate meaningful interpretations, and other elements that create and bring emotion or lessons to a painting.

For the next 3 paintings I created, I used similar a similar outline of incorporating nature into all my paintings. The connection I am planning to make from the nature paintings are not exactly realistic pictures of how earth truly looks but the figurative way of how I will soon explain through the interpretations.

For the picture below, I decided to do a quartet of miniature paintings to come together as a meaningful piece of art.

"Four Seasons of  Reflection"

Now to be honest, this is not my own original idea behind the Four Seasons. Although I am not exactly sure who created the graphic I was inspired by, I used the picture to help me look at for an outline. This painting I originally did not have any meaning for why I was painting it, I wanted to simply do something relaxing and fun while I had the free time. As I painted these four pictures, I eventually began to break the pieces apart to find what important message I could think of interpreting to relate to humans. If one were to see this painting at a gallery, they probably would have tried to find a connection to the song "Four Seasons" Composed and written by Vivaldi. My intention was not trying to connect those two examples. Figuratively thinking, I found the meaning of change over time, or also known as a time lapse. Everyone believes they change after periods of time, or they change their personality or clothing styles to fit in. This painting I interpreted as although we all believe we change, we are actually growing into different parts of ourselves "phases" we go through as teenagers to try and find who we truly are. In the painting I did not remember to make the tree branches similar but I wanted to show that trees change seasonally and so do we. We all improve and go through many cycles of trying to find who we are as a person and look for our personality and reflect about morals.

Colors play a big role in the complete quartet of paintings I created above. We all think of Happiness when it's the summer time. Some of us are connect sadness and gloomy days to the fall or winter time. Spring is seen as a chance of renewal (crops and flowers).  The "Four Seasons of Reflection" can be interpreted in many ways. In the book, "The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art" By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, explains a lot about the influence meaning behind color from any piece of artwork. "Artists use intensity of color to convey mood. Value refers to light or dark aspects of color. The lighter the color, the closer it is to white, the darker the color, the closer to black." (Greenberg and Jordan 32). The color of the seasons show how the weather affects mood as well and incorporate multiple impressions of happiness, relaxation, sadness, etc.

Graphic Inspiration photo 

The photo pictured on the left was an inspiration I found while just randomly searching on google what to paint. The seasons as I mentioned before meant the different phases of change we go through to reflect over our inner-selves. I personally really believed this painting connected to me well because I have multiple personalities with different people and I believed that I have changed and matured. Leaves change color and fall representing death is to me giving up a dream that was not fulfilled to create a new adventure of finding what life is to us. Although my painting skills are not at standard yet, I will be explaining the materials and how I use them to create different visual effects on my painting.

Tree Trunk Process

First, to create the tree trunk, I used dark brown paint and painted the bottom first to create a general outline of what shape tree I wanted. Eventually I added branches to show more whimsical affect. 

Brush definition 

When I painted the winter themed tree, I used a very dry and stiff haired brush. If the brush was smooth and had flexible hairs, the snowflakes would not show definition or precise lines. This effect made it easier for me to learn and go through a simple process of using a soft hand grip. 

Resourceful Painting

For the green tree representing summer, I used only the curve of the eraser to create leaves on the tree. Using things around my house besides brushes makes it easier to craft different shapes. The eraser technique I used as a stippling effect in my previous painting.

Art Connection 

For Fall seasons, I used a brush to emphasize the multiple colors of leaves. Since they fall down to the ground I painted the photo by using a brush to mix three to four colors. Seeing nail art videos made me relate the mixing of colors at the bottom of the painting as a marbled look. 








After finishing the final product, I realized and reflected back on how much I have changed over time. Since I'm a very emotional person I began to bawl my eyes out for multiple reasons and the experiences that have changed me. 

The next painting, I created was more of a scenery and time lapse effect.

Blending Colors 

Before I began painting, I looked up pictures of nature in general and tried to find graphics that I could take ideas from to incorporate in my paintings to make meaningful interpretations. I came to a picture of a moon and instantly remembered my eighth grade science class. The phases of the moon gave me an idea to connect back to my first painting of the different seasons.


The process of painting the background is quite simple. I chose similar colors and shades of blue, green and shades of purple to show contrast in the beauty of night skies. To create the soft blend of colors, I made sure to mix multiple colors from gradient levels to show transitions from different colors easily. To do this, I used a wide and thick brush to make it faster while creating full strokes. Doing full straight lines across the canvas will make it easier for no mistakes to come along the road while doing short motions of the brush will create a more curved mark when viewing the painting as the brush lifts up. The movement and marks a brush leaves on a canvas can indicate various interpretations of feelings. For my Quarter 2 IRP project, I have been reading the book, "The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art" By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. Every mark made on the canvas has a symbolic meaning behind it. The language of art takes a lot of analyzing and patience.

According to the book, "Each of these lines conveys its own mood to the viewer. Vertical lines can be seen as strong, rigid, formal or even religious. Horizontal lines can be interpreted as peaceful depressed, or serene. Jagged lines may indicate excitement, anger, or energy. Curved lines often are sensuous, organic, and rhythmic." (Greenberg and Jordan 21).

Every mark made has a meaning, some could just be for detail and fillers. Art is a language that is made from the heart to analyze every mark, stroke, color, and alliteration that pieces together into a puzzle of imagination.

"Same Moon, Same Person"

The final product of my painting, I wanted the picture to capture a time lapse of the moon's movements and phases over a month. The background is the sky and the details added in the bottom left corner are stilts with features of rocks to add detail on a beach. The whole takeaway I want viewers to see from this piece of art is the change over time. The moon changes its position, color, times of presence, and overall the moon is constantly changing. Technology, fashion trends, and our own personalities are constantly changing to fit into societal norms. I have seen this trend when teenagers move from grade school, secondary, and finally high school. Many try to be something they are not and constantly change fashion looks and flaunt what they have to grab other's attentions and make friends. The moon is the same, and so is everyone around us. We all put up an act to get through the day and so does the moon. Each day, different and new. We will always still have parts of our past reflect in our daily actions no matter how hard we try to mask them in disguise.

This painting was originally made because I had excess paint from my last painting "Same Moon, Same Person". I have made similar paintings like this during the summer when I had the lack of knowledge for finding meaningful interpretations of artwork. Now that I have been reading and teaching myself to think in a critical and new perspective, I was able to create an interpretation of nature and the effects of human actions that threaten our environment.


Now this painting I created is not that creative or one of a kind. I'm sure many painters or freelancers have done the majestic look of skies before as well. I used the same technique of combining similar shades of blue, green, and purple to give a nice contrast. The black is simply just mountain scenery and the nude dots are stars.


In this painting I used the technique called " A matter of space". In the book it states that, "But whether their art is abstract or realistic, they still make use of many of the same techniques to create perspective or the illusion of depth." (Greenberg and Jordan 70). The overlapping colors shows the depth of converging lines and colors while I didn't make the mountain too big to take away the beauty of the sky.


Now my question for you is have you ever seen anything like this in your own bare eyes with nature? I'm sure many of us would say no, but I would love to experience that beautiful night sky. After finishing this painting, I realized how much technology and industries have sucked in and taken over our natural beauty of a city that once was clear and not full of pollution. We don't see as many stars as we should because of the clouds of gas and industrial works that have harmed our environment. While thinking about this after, I changed my views on many things I normally do. Not only are vehicles harmful but electricity as well. My hope for the future is to find a way to get rid of many harmful pollutants in the atmosphere and go back to the clear skies before the Industrial Revolution.

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print

Overall, this book has helped broaden my thinking skills by thinking deeper about every small detail that is present in an image. This post I moved away from finding inspiration from the book but connecting it to nature and finding ways to connect them with human actions, emotions, and development.

If my clue was "Humans" for all the paintings I created above, how would you have interpreted either one of them? Do you think it would have been difficult and confusing?

Besides the connection of Nature and Humans, what ideas did you have in mind for me to work on next?

Leave a comment down below :)

Realistic Drawing

Intro to Realistic Drawing

Drawing has been a pretty staple hobby that I found myself to always enjoy and find time for when I really wanted to. However, recently I've been having less and less time for, so now I'm taking the opportunity to further my passion that really enjoy. I in no way see myself as a professional but I do think drawing is an easy way to pass time and create some creative pieces for yourself to enjoy.

Now the kind of drawing I'm focusing on is realistic drawing of both people and animals. This in my opinion is the most difficult form of drawing simply because it's quite easy to tell with the human eye when something is off about a piece of art trying to look real, regardless of whether we know what exactly makes it look so off. However, I am always up for a challenge and hope that as time progresses I will be able to get better at it.

When a realistic drawing is done really well it can almost exactly resemble what it's trying to represent, but to look at this type of drawing as one large and tedious creation is the wrong approach. As I learned reading through "Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing" by Lee Hammond "The key is seeing everything you draw as nothing but large and small shapes, all connected together, much like those of a puzzle." (Hammond 5). It was messages like those throughout the book that allowed me to grasp  better understanding of the craft.

Shading

For now I am working with black and white which makes a crucial element in realistic drawing very important. That element is known as shading and it allows the art to have the appearance of dimension as if it wasn't drawn on a two dimensional surface. In my book it emphasizes that it's necessary to be able to understand how the balance of lighting and shadows affect the drawing.

Towards the left you can see an excerpt from the book showing how to apply shading to an object making it appear three dimensional using the bar that represents the five elements of shading. The book states "With any of these elements missing, your work will appear flat." (Hammond 13). On the right is my own drawing trying to resemble that technique.  My depiction of the sphere isn't exact seeing as it isn't a perfect circle and the shading doesn't make the sphere appear exactly three dimensional , but applying the five elements of shading transforms my drawing from looking like a 2-D cartoon to a 3-D illustration.

Practice Makes Perfect

Realistic drawing is a process and takes time to fully understand and develop. What's important is to keep in mind all of the steps and tools to apply to your drawing to make it appear real. What aspects of drawing do you feel truly makes a artistic piece come alive, making the drawing itself pop out at you? What do you think I could apply to my artwork to make it look more realistic? Leave your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below and thanks for reading. :)

Strokes of discrimination

Society can be cruel to those who differ from the social norms. An example of this would be the unfair treatment between whites and blacks, gays and lesbians, racism towards colored people, prejudice towards certain groups, you name it. This is what our community is like sadly. We have made small steps in history to now in creating a more accepting environment for everyone to feel safe.

For the next two paintings I created, I used the idea of segregation from the novel The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver and as for the second painting I connected the social justice issue of sexual and gender identities to portray the actions of those against LGBTQ communities.

For the picture below, I used duck tape to assure there will be less paint seeping through the bottom to create paint marks in the white lines. This technique I used was not used in the book but I know from personal experience that masking tape isn't the best to work with when trying to create paintings with geometric shapes. 

 

Taping design process 

Painting and color choice process

For the choice of colors, I decided to stick with three simple and dark colors that hold special and deep meanings behind them. Black is a dark shade; we often interpret this color and connect it to sorrow, death, mystery, and grief. The color red is bold and vibrant. Right away we often think either simple things in life that are red or cynically to connect with blood, power, romance, and excitement. Finally purple is a subtle more calming shade that often sparks a more calming and civilized state of mind. Often connects to the scent and calming look of lavender. Sometimes the shade could be seen as a state of frustration and confusion. When I chose these three colors, I wanted to assure that there is a subtle side of how the painting appears in the end.  According to the book "The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art" , "The colors speak of moods-a precise arrangement of sounds...Bands of color unfolding like a melody."  (Greenberg and Jordan 49). This meaning, every color has a purpose in art. 

Roads of Segregation 

I named this painting "Roads of Segregation" because of the dividing lines and the different colors represent the sad and heart breaking idea of inequity between white and black people. The three colors have a deep meaning of depressing memories and I wanted to connect this to the novel The Bean Trees during the 1980s. Segregation was introduced in the novel The Bean Trees when Taylor was driving across the border to get Estevan and Esperanza safe to the Orthodox Church. "We must have been getting closer to the heart of the Cherokee Nation, whatever or wherever it was, because as we drove east we saw fewer and fewer white people." (Kingsolver 215).
To interpret this painting all at once, the lines represent the roads that segregate the differences of others mostly connected to racial indifference's for a communities' culture. Each color is a separate county but the colors code for the hatred of each group and the absence of acceptance of one another to become one whole county.

For my sixth painting, I decided to link the interpretation with the criticism against same-sex marriage and LGBTQ communities. I personally find this topic very unnecessary for people to disapprove and complain about. Our country was made for the point of having freedom yet some believe those of the LGBTQ community should be punished and harassed for whom they are. Since this topic is still pretty new, I figured I should depict how I feel towards our society and how gays and lesbians are treated.

Process of painting

Pictured on the left is the process of how I started my painting. For the visual effects, I was inspired from my book. I took part of the visual from a painting names Fez I. I slight messed up since I didn't think too much on the design, but I used duck tape to assure that paint would not go through masking tape and leave unwanted marks. I used the colors Crimson and Black instead of Forest Green and Lime Yellow because each color has a meaning and I wanted the colors to depict our society. The visual is not as noticeable in my painting because the lines do not meet in the center and I made a slight mistake of the color per line.

Frank Stella, Fez I, 1964 

As I read the book, I came across the Target with Four faces painting and my ideas instantly came to mind of finding the perfect representation of gay and lesbians. Seeing the target I thought of it as a way of being prey for hate groups against LGBTQ followers.
So after seeing that, I decided to make a target with seven rings to have each round represent the colors of the rainbow in support of each individual subsection for LGBTQ. So for the final painting, it came out to be a mixture of Fez I and Target with Four Faces. I wanted to emphasize this painting by showing fear and inequity of human beings and the book helped me describe this feeling in my paint by accenting highlighted features.

" A target can be found at a rifle range as well as in a shooting gallery." (Greenberg and Jordan 62)

Jasper Johns, Target w/ Four Faces,1955

That line from the book made me think of the final outcome of the painting by adding emphasis and bits of ridges to express the negative twist the painting portrays towards hating gays and lesbians.

I named my final painting "Target of Reality" because this is how I see our community treating others of LGBTQ members. The firsts positive movement of accepting those in the community was when some states in the U/S allowed same-sex marriage. This law was significant and helpful to others to feel free about expressing themselves without feeling ashamed. Not all states have approved this law. This has affected teens and adults who get bullied doe their sexuality based on pressure from the community, cultural beliefs, and family. Personally I don't judge others because I don't see what they are doing is a sin. To create the dramatic effect, I used an arrow to show that the Crimson and Black lines are people in society who attack and harass those who are different from the social norm. Four years later has not changed much and leading causes of depression and suicide is from the stereotypes, jokes, and assumptions humans make and hurt others mentally.

Target of Reality

To the left is the final painting. Crimson or Red showing the blood and wars that people fight through when bullied or being harassed. The color also shows dominance, meaning it can be interpreted as a way of peer pressure from other people. Black meaning death shows the sorrow and upsetting time period we have come to today for not accepting others for who they are.






Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print

Although my fifth painting wasn't inspired from the book, I am going to try and move away from social justice issue topics to other topics that are not as intense and heavy on the mind to connect more with how to book sees art as a part of our daily lives.

If the only hint I gave for these two paintings were "society", how would you have interpreted the paintings? Is "Target of Reality" a pretty simple interpretation?

Leave a comment down below on what topics you think I should focus on next! :)

Digging deeper into Art

A piece of art can be interpreted in various ways. The less details shown, the harder one must think to make an understanding of what the artist was trying to show through the use of shapes, color, point of view, and how it could connect to either one's life or the community.

In these two paintings, I wanted to design a look that connected to the novel "The Bean Trees" By Barbara Kingsolver. One of my paintings was inspired by a painting from the book "The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art" By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. The other painting was a moral I understood from reading one of the chapters of The Bean Trees.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can, 1964 silk screen canvas

My third painting I created to connect to The Bean Trees is a can of Dole Mixed Fruits. I was inspired by a simple painting of Campbell's Tomato Soup I found in The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. 








When I first came across this painting, my first thought was "WHY?" Before reading the meaning behind why Andy Warhol painted this, I tried think of a reason of why a can of soup was important. My first intention of this painting was connected with hunger or poverty. The access to a can of tomato soup in a grocery store is highly obtainable, considering most are at most $1.00 each. Yet this wasn't how he interpreted his painting.

Why is this image so famous?
Warhol wanted people to be drawn to the fact that a big can of soup is displayed on a museum wall. As people analyze the painting, not much would come to our minds thinking of how this is significant. His reasoning for this was that, "...the shape of the can, solid and compact, pleasingly proportioned, the color of the label, the crisp contrast of red and white." (Greenberg and Jordan 81) all these attributes would change the point of view of someone walking down the soup aisle of a grocery store. He believed that the precise painting of a can and the use of basic details depicted how "our daily life are glorified by art." (Greenberg and Jordan 81). His last line of this paragraph I feel really ties in the whole understanding of why I painted.

After reading his interpretation of Tomato soup, I set my mind to find a meaningful representation of an issue in society to connect with a can of perishable foods. While I tried to think of connecting food to The Bean Trees, I didn't want the representation to be simple and straightforward like vegetables to relate with Turtle. I thought of the book as a whole of how the government is unreasonable towards immigrants like Estevan and Esperanza. After a hard 2 minutes of thinking, I came up with the idea of canned Dole Mixed Fruits. Warhol's last line was, "And that, in the end, is what it's all about." (Greenberg and Jordan 81) helped me realize that the idea of painting a can of fruit wasn't crazy. Having people realize that art is surrounding us helps them analyze objects more in depth to try and answer questions of how to solve problems in our society.

The DOLE reality

Why fruits you ask?

Fruits, so many different types grown in various ways. All of them taste different, some sweet some sour. I saw a can of mixed fruits important because everyone of the fruits no matter what flavor is sealed in a can. I saw this as a government full of diverse personalities and ethnic backgrounds. The topic of stereotypes and prejudice against certain racial groups are very crucial and important to me. I painted a can of Dole Mixed Fruits because I saw this as an opportunity to show that the government in the 1980s was unfair. The government not accepting "illegals" in the country made me very angry as I read the novel. The reason for Estevan and Esperanza being in the US is to find a safe hiding place to stay away from interrogations in the Guatemalan government. Having the government kick people out when they are in danger shows how cruel white people are towards people of color. The painting I created I wanted to show people that this is how our government, schools, communities, and neighborhoods should be like in order for there to be no harm towards one another. Art shows the DOLE reality of how our society is like.

For the color choices of this painting, I did not put much thought into the color of the fruits because many of the fruits on the main label are fairly similar in color; I mainly painted, red, yellow, orange, and a blackberry to show somewhat of a diverse community. My painting skill have not perfected much yet but some techniques I believe I could have done to make the can look more compact and slick would be adding tapes on the sides to have a smoother and straighter line to express the cylinder shape.

Process of Stippling definition 

Night Blooming Cereus 

The painting on the left is a part of my process of making the night blooming cereus.

For the stippling effect, I used the back of a new pencil to assure that the stamp of the flat rounded eraser would be noticeable to show texture and depth in the flower.

The shape of the flower doesn't have sharp edges because I wanted to show the soft and fragile appearance of how special it was to show the moral of appreciating what you have at the moment it’s there. 

I used the colors lavender, magenta, vibrant orange, red, forest green, light green, yellow, and jade green. I mixed these colors together to create a vibrant flower to capture the beauty of a night blooming cereus. After painting the flower, I didn’t want to leave the background blank so I used 3 different shades of green to represent the types of vegetables and importance of wisteria vines brought up in the novel. The choice of colors I used to create the painting are very vibrant because I wanted to show depth and the flow of emotions that was going on when Edna had shown everyone the flower. How I interpreted this scene was since the flower only blooms one night a year and the fragrance disappears when you cut the flower petals, the meaning behind this was to cherish what you have now even if there’s a possibility of you losing it. This applied to Taylor and Turtle’s relationship if Taylor had lost Turtle to the state orphanage for custody. 

*I originally made this painting for the art project of making a new cover for the novel, but I figured making a painting would show much more detail and meaning when one is analyzing my art.*

Although the book did not say anything about stippling effect for acrylic paint, the idea of stippling is simply shown in the front cover and in one of the paintings of visual effects. The stippling is not as clearly represented in this photo but, the dots are gradually darker as they go from left to right. The effect shows by giving off more detail and provides a strong structure of a realistic photo of a subject. 

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print. 

Overall, I feel like the interpretations I am making from my art are quite confusing but understandable after reading the text and taking apart each piece to analyze how I'm truly thinking. For my next paintings I will try to incorporate a part of modern society to assure that others can relate to the art or comment to help me improve my artistic view. 

Do you have any suggestions of what painting techniques I should try to improve the visual effects of my artwork?  

If the only clue I gave about my paintings were "The Bean Trees", how would you have interpreted the artwork? Especially my painting of the canned fruits! 

Leave a comment down below! (:

Artwork with meaningful interpretations

What is artwork with meaning behind it? In other words, what type of art is counted as meaningful instead of just copying a simple animated cartoon character from a show?


This last summer I was really interested in painting with acrylics but I'm not exactly the most artistic student you'll ever find. I painted very simple paintings that you could probably find online or I copied sea animals and scenery that I thought were pleasing to the eye. Over the summer I used painting as a stress reliever, I would paint all evening until the sun went down. Now as I look back, there were no true feelings or meanings I could pull from the artwork, all of them were straightforward with no depth or details included.


What's the point of art if there is no emotion behind it?
Every good artist should have a meaning or interpretation of some sort that can help others understand the painter's life or to connect within society. This question motivated me into becoming a better artist, I want to build a better foundation on how to use certain colors, symbols, and canvases to bring art to life by connecting it with society. That's why I decided to read The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.

Summer Artwork

For my first blog post I decided to connect my painting with the most recent novel we just finished, "The Bean Trees" By Barbara Kingsolver.

I want my paintings to connect with the social justice issue presented through the book in a creative way. For the first painting I created to connect with the book was a painting of different types of cooked eggs.

EGGs-planation of Family 

Now why eggs? How does food have anything to do with social justice issues?












Think of it this way:
Eggs can be cooked in multiple ways, soft boiled, over boiled, over easy, hard boiled, sunny side up, over hard, over easy and much more. All eggs can be cooked in either way the person prefers. How i saw this was everyone in society is different but accepts all as one group or family. I connected this with all the characters of The Bean Trees. Taylor, Turtle, Esperanza, Mattie, Lou Ann, and Estevan. Six different characters with all different backgrounds are picked out of the same tree and all of them come together as a family (one whole egg).

As I flipped through the book, I came across a picture of hot dogs. There are five hot dogs lined up in a row painted on a canvas showing immense detail on small differences of each individual. Such as, the slight difference in sizes, the dollops of mustard, the markings and shading of the bun.

Wayne Thiebaud, Five Hot Dogs, 1961 Oil Canvas 

Now this picture may seem silly, one may ponder about how hot dogs are so significant. Thiebaud intended to make a twist in pictures of food, traditionally we would see pictures of a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers, maybe even a baguette if one wished to paint such beauty. Simply these hot dogs reminded him of how he saw America. "Picnic, baseball, beach, campfire, circus, cheap, easy-to-eat, easy-to-cook, American. So hot dogs are cheap and mass-produced; you can afford one even when you're broke. But you usually eat them when you're having a good time." (Greenberg and Jordan, 40). Something so simple and accessible in an American's daily life style can bring happiness and good memories. When I first glanced at the photo I thought it was quite pointless without reading the text. After reading the interpretation, it helped me get a decent foundation on what I see and think of symbolically.

Fishing for acceptance 

 Throughout the whole novel there was only one reference to fishing mentioned...how is that even important?

Fish always get baited by a simple worm and get caught up with the tricks of us sly human beings. But what about humans? What do we fall for? Who baits us? 

Well society does, especially the embodiment of women. This social justice issue was a big role in The Bean Trees. Lou Ann was a big part of wanting to be the perfect house wife, with a great body, cleaning the house, caring for Dwayne Ray and Angel. But what does she get back? Negativity and shame from her ex-husband. She worries and feeds into trying to fit the perfect role of women in the 1980s. The hooks I painted to symbolize society and role models made for commercializing while the fish represent the women who try to loose weight (the hotel owner who is hoping to be a future mother) or fit in the role of what everyone expects. I did my best to use as little colors as I can to show that 'the fish' are all looking to be the same thing, no diversity, all baited into the hook and it makes them so called 'normal' when there should be women of all sizes being accepted, and recognized for all their efforts put in to the family. 

In this painting, I made sure that only two colors (aqua green and dusty blue) would dominate over the whole canvas. I did this because I wanted to emphasize the true meaning of how women are all similar if they followed society's rules. I wanted to mimic the outlined idea of using less colors and similar continuous patterns because, "By limiting his color and repeating the red shapes, Francis manipulates the way we look at the parts of this painting, as well as the way we read it as a whole." (Greenberg and Jordan, 64). After seeing the picture of Sam Francis's Big Red, I got my idea of connecting animals to humans as to how Barbara Kingsolver connected vegetables to people in Turtle's perspective. 

Sam Francis's Big Red 1953 Oil Canvas

Overall, I feel the most difficult part of painting on canvases was using different types of paints. I used oil paint on my egg piece and I found that it was much harder to work with because the drying  process was much longer than acrylic paints. I was inspired by some of the artwork inside the book and found a way to make the interpretation fit with my beliefs. Using the book The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art, I was able to understand the use of detail for color choice, symbolism, shapes, and connect them to how I see and interpret the environment around me. I was also able to comprehend the meanings behind the painting. By reading some of the background information of the examples given above, I decided to challenge myself in thinking more critically by trying to connect paintings to what we learned in class, how I see society, my beliefs, and other symbols that I can connect with nature.

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print.

What other social justice issues did you find important from the Novel "The Bean Trees" that I should express through my future paintings?

If the only clue I gave about my paintings were "The Bean Trees", how would you have interpreted the artwork? 

What did you envision? Leave a comment down below! (: