Dry Point
Yellow, Orange, and Blue
Dry Point Print and Prang Watercolors 23.5cm x 20cm October 2017 Exhibition Text An abstraction of thought and of work. The artistry shows the different interpretations of the world we all have. This is shown through key changes to Rene Magritte's "L'art de Vivre" and his style. The only unaltered part is man himself, he stays basic in form while his setting is changed around him. The piece's goal is to show a different world view by alternating a known perspective. |
Research
Inspiration
Rene Magritte was an extreme surrealist heavily influencing the art style itself with his new perceptions of people and objects. His thoughts on his work are as follows "My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?' It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing, it is unknowable." -Rene Magritte. I personally wanted to emulate this mystery in my dry point artwork. Shockingly his piece "The Art of Living" was composed the year of his death, 1967. The piece is remarkable, but it is significant because of it's mystery and non-remarkableness. The ballooned head smiles with a certain confidence and intrigue making the rest of piece almost disappear in the background. In my work I wanted to show what the background of his piece may have been communicating. I was also inspired by this very much stock photo from Getty images that I saw while reading an article on programming. A programmer very much so loses himself in programming and it is easy to feel nearly disconnected from the world while diving into work. The stock image is actually symbolical of a lot, and much of it can connect to the surrealist art era. The man is leaning into technology and being transformed, Rene does the same thing with his paintings, he becomes mysterious. I was inspired to use cross hatching in my dry point piece similar to the cross hatching in "L'art de Vivre". It is fluid and shows movement, and in a way is more aggressive and leaves less to mystery. I wanted to keep the discontent of the ballooned man but instead put emphasis on the background and how it is changing in ways that may have gone unnoticed if the focus remained on facial characteristics and heavy pink colors of flesh. |
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Planning
Sketching (Click Images to Enlarge)
To begin my planning process I started an inspiration page. As opposed to my last inspiration page I wanted to focus specifically on Rene's technique and overall style. I redrew the "L'art de Vivre" on the right side of the page. I identified his cross hatching, the angle of lighting, and the flow of his background. Additionally I looked at the proportions, the face is meant to cover the majority of piece and once again for my version I wanted to put emphasis on the background so I needed to figure out how to do this. I did a panel of cross hatching and noticed the different line lengths and densities in his work. I now knew that I needed to use short and dense cross hatching on the suit but have it contrasted with very light cross hatching on the background. So I decided maybe stippling would provide the contrast I was looking for, however after doing some stippling I noticed none of his work features this technique and it would no longer fit into the style. I also did some work on his facial features in this inspiration page, I wanted to narrow down his different facial expressions used. Next I worked on my first planning sketch, I used cross hatching on a center sphere kept the mountainous background and wall. However I added other elements such as the floating heads rising and setting behind the mountain range. I felt lost with the direction of the objects within this sketch and thus I did not continue on with further detailing. The tentacles were mysterious but didn't have the proper implications it made it seem like something else was being communicated. I did really like the upper left face though, it communicated fear almost as it was rising up.
The next planning sketch was much more abstract, delving further into shape and cross hatching than the first. I broke down the lines of cross hatching and had them going undisturbed in one direction and then the directions changed as it traveled down the left side of the sketch. I also used filling space by using walls traveling in all directions, the cross hatching creates a tear in the sketch that is ended by the circle at the top. I was attempting to use shape to create it's own mystery, what did the different components mean? Why were there walls in an entirely abstracted work? Keeping this idea I decided to more on to another planning sketch. I decided to keep all of the elements in Rene's original artwork but shift their orientation and presentation. I drew the wall in the foreground and extended it so that it was more apparent. With the wall now larger the sky would be nearly cut out of the piece if I still made the mountains to scale. So instead the mountains got moved to top of the setting and were now upside down as if they were coming from the sky. The lines in the background are the sky, similar to "Starry Night" by Van Gogh, the sky is moving and flowing around. The face is purposefully cropped out of the image, I did not want it to a; be a copy of the original and b; put emphasis on the head.
Process
Experimentation
The dry point project allows for a lot of variable and process manipulation due to the number of steps required to produce a piece. Some variables and I manipulated and experimented with were the amount of ink on the printing plate, the soaking of the paper, the depth of cuts in the plate, cross hatching, color and finally the pressing process. One of the first things I experimented with was the depth of my cuts into the polymer plate. I used deep and connected cuts to outline objects in the piece, I outlined the mountains, the balloon head, the collar of the suit, and the brick wall at the bottom. Cross hatching was extremely important in this piece and I know I needed to make the cross seem similar to "L'art de Vivre", I began by making straight lines in the background and then curving them around the mountains and the suits to show some movement and character in the sky. Additionally I decided to not texture the wall, in the original it has a light gradient I decided to not add any gradient to the piece. The next variable I experimented with was the amount of ink on the printing plate, after applying and spreading ink on the plate you need to wipe it off with paper. I experimented with not scraping away all of the ink and leaving some clouds on the plate, this however resulted in smudging and did not look the way I wanted it to. Paper soaking also affected the amount of ink that appeared, I found the images became distorted when I soaked the paper for more than 4 minutes and the paper tor during the drying process. I attempted rolling the print in the press multiple times but as the middle image shows this caused the piece curving on paper. I also used watercolor on the piece and this really showed stark contrasts between the elements, and I accidentally scanned it in black in white which created interesting gradients in the work.
Process
The first part of any artwork is the sketching process, going through the artists work and my theme and drawing connections between the two. I decided to go with my final planning sketch which is the most similar to "The Art of Living" because of the similar elements it has to Rene's style. Next was the carving and cutting process which was done by placing the plate over my sketch and taping it down. I then outlined all of my pencil markings with the cutting tool, being sure to use different depths for different effects (outlines vs shading). Following this was the inking process, you take a palate knife and oil based ink and spread it across the entire plate being sure it is applied over all of the cuts. Once the ink is in the cuts of plate you begin removing the ink with paper by firmly pressing it and wiping the ink off of the plate. The ending result from this long process is a plate that only as ink in the cuts and no ink on the surface of plate. While wiping the plate you leave thick printing paper in water to soak for 3 minutes, following its soaking time you remove the paper and wipe the excess water off so that the paper is only moist. After this you place the plate on paper and sandwich it between the printing board and the printing cover in the printing press. After positioning the board you put it through the press which pushes the paper into the cuts in the printing plate. I then took the paper and colored it using Prang water color paints. I did this to emphasize the background and contrast the body and balloon head. The final step is to let the piece air dry.
Reflection
Looking back on the long process of the dry point project I am very satisfied with the result. I achieved the desired effect of emulating one Rene's artworks and still leaving a sense of mystery. Much of the background has been tweaked to stand out from piece. One thing I did notice is the heavy contrast of color vs black white did cause the man to appear as a key element. I do not believe this is a bad seeing as much of Rene's work includes all elements of the piece regardless of what his focus was on, but I personally hadn't intended to emphasize the man as a primary object. My experimental stages helped me visualize what my end piece would look like significantly, I am glad I decided to use water color on the paper instead of leaving it bland. The colors are unique and different from Rene's color palate which helps my theme of abstraction. Abstraction currently a large theme arc in my work and I am still working on making it more apparent in each piece, I abstracted this works focus, the expression of the man and the personality of the background. Over all I am satisfied with outcome and objective appearances and elements that can be seen in my work.
ACT Responses
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
Magritte's artwork has heavy impact on my choice of subject matter and artistic style. I work his style meticulously into my own artwork in attempts to nearly replicate it. I wanted to show movement, shape, and form very similarly to the way he did in "L'art de Vivre" but from a different perspective.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The auther lays out the topic with a large focus on appreciation and aspiration to to my inspirations art style and general form.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My inspiration has a heavy focus on mystery in his work, and while researching his purpose behind his work I came to the realization that he is working around peoples artistic generalizations. Many people look for an easy theme or purpose behind artwork, but Rene has made it hard to find any such things.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea has continued to be abstraction, specifically how to change the focus of a mystery. I was searching for Rene's focus in his work so that I could have a different focus in my own work.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made inferences primarily about the focus of Rene's work. No where explicitly does it say Rene was putting focus on the balloon head in "The Art of Living" I inferred that based on his background and the background of the piece.
Magritte's artwork has heavy impact on my choice of subject matter and artistic style. I work his style meticulously into my own artwork in attempts to nearly replicate it. I wanted to show movement, shape, and form very similarly to the way he did in "L'art de Vivre" but from a different perspective.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The auther lays out the topic with a large focus on appreciation and aspiration to to my inspirations art style and general form.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My inspiration has a heavy focus on mystery in his work, and while researching his purpose behind his work I came to the realization that he is working around peoples artistic generalizations. Many people look for an easy theme or purpose behind artwork, but Rene has made it hard to find any such things.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea has continued to be abstraction, specifically how to change the focus of a mystery. I was searching for Rene's focus in his work so that I could have a different focus in my own work.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made inferences primarily about the focus of Rene's work. No where explicitly does it say Rene was putting focus on the balloon head in "The Art of Living" I inferred that based on his background and the background of the piece.
Bibliography
- Lisi, M. (n.d.). René Magritte | L'Art de Vivre (1968) | Available for Sale | Artsy. Retrieved November 07, 2017, from https://www.artsy.net/artwork/rene-magritte-lart-de-vivre
- A-image. (2017, April 6). Digitization and artificial intelligence concept with side profile of... Retrieved November 07, 2017, from https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/digitization-and-artificial-intelligence-concept-with-side-profile-of-head-and-gm664756306-121265319
- NA. (2009). Rene Magritte and his paintings. Retrieved November 7, 2017, from https://www.renemagritte.org/