photos

I thought it was about time I put in a couple better quality photos. They're still not great but definitely better than the pics I took with my phone! When the stuff is hanging I'll take some better photos.
Also, I was in the exhibition space today vacuuming, and I had a good look in the exhibition space for visual arts. It is tiny! there are walls put in place for us to use with enough for some people to use 1.2m and the rest to use 2.4. which is quite small, especially since my painting with multiple scars is 1.2m width on its own. This means I will only be able to hang 2 of the paintings.

I only intend to have the above painting as experimentation but thought I should get some better quality pics since the last ones I posted were such poor quality.

Tessa.

Artist statement

So, after some class brainstorming I have finally come up with titles for my paintings, yay. It's hard to think of them with the titles but that's probably because I've become used to referring to them as angry style painting and lots of scars on big board painting. Lol. (Which weren't entirely suitable :p) my small board with the big scab on it is called 'wound', the big board with lots of scars is called 'healing' and the angry face is called 'hurt'. If I do a big scab on another big board I will call it scarred. The series is called scar.

And here is my artist statement to go with them at the exhibition.

My 'Scar' series has been an exploration of paint and style to create a mood and form of expression for past events and emotions in my life, which people can reflect on in their own lives. It draws a connection between the mental and physical scars people receive through their lives, and more directly reflects on moments in my life which have left a lasting impact. Each scar is a physical reminder of a memory or mistake, some more vivid and painful to recall than others. Other memories of mental pain have left scars which are slowly healing in my mind.

This is 101 words, the limit is 100 so I think it will do. Any constructive criticism is appreciated, but it's getting typed up this arvo anyway so don't do it if it's already too late for me to change anything!!

Angry portraiture

Now I will give an update of my angry portrait. I decided to use the first expression as a reference because this is the image I have drawn the most so feel comfortable drawing it now, plus I think it has been the most successful expression. The step I did after the blue under painting was cover it in impasto gel with my textured hand prints, then after it dried I put some yellow, brown, orange paint... Then another layer because the blue was too visible. After that I put a wash in orange, then a light red wash. Then I drew on the face which I am not happy with yet, I need to do something with the eyes to make them more angry. I then tested the impasto over the permanent marker and it was fine so coated the whole board with another layer of textured impasto. That's. all I've done so far, so here are some pics.

Tessa.

1 week!

I have been doing lots of painting these past few days, working on my large painting with lots of scars and my painting/drawing of my angry face. I'll start with the scars.

I started by covering the whole surface with impasto gel and texturing it with my hand prints. Once that had dried I started putting in the black lines. I purposefully didn't have them measures or ruled because I think they look better and suit me better free hand with different thicknesses+ wonky. I also painted the edge black. I then painted over the squares at the top which hadn't been done yet, then impasto on them. After that I used red and brown to put splashes, hand marks, drips etc on the painting in a random way. Then I used white paint to paint over the scars so they would stand out. Mu original intention was to have them brown like the other scab but beecause they are so small i did not think brown would stand out enough. The white was a bit bright so then i added a couple layers of watered down browny red paint. The next step will be to go at it with a knife so it doesn't look so perfect.

My bus is nearly at my work now so I'm gonna wrap this up will do a separate post about my other painting later.

Like always pics are in random order.

Tessa.

Scab-art

I am writing this as I wait for my bus to take me to work... It was meant to be here 10 mins ago so I may not have time to buy more impasto b4 I start which I desperately need! I have been slowly progressing with my painting all day while watching Heroes and Once Upon A Time. Great tv shows. Here is where I stand with my paintings.

Large painting with lots of scab/scars:
I was going to use a few different colour themes to put variation in the painting, but didn't like how it was looking so ended up painting over them in the same old orange/yellow/brown combo. I have made the squares a bit different by having variation in shade and the dominant colour. I need more impasto to continue with it, I also need to put a very light wash over the top with red in it. I have been building it up with layers, first a dark or light layer, then impasto moulded with hand/finger prints, then a layer using my colours rubbed in with hands, and then a wash over the top with same colours and some splashes of red. This is where I'm up to so far. Not happy with how it looks yet but hopefully with more layers it will build up like the other one did.

Large painting of my figure:
I think I will scrap this one. I used permanent marker to scribble an angry looking figure on it, then put a wash of red over the top which got rid of the weird shine from the marker in certain light. Then I used impasto mixed with blue and red to do a rough figure over the top.
From doing this I realised I can incorporate my rough angry scribble style into paintings, because having the wash over the top gets rid of the funny coloured shine, which brings me to my next painting.

Angry self portrait over paint:
I am using a board the same size as the paper I was using while drawing my angry faces. So far I have painted it dark blue as an undercoat and put impasto over half of it in hand print texture until I ran out. I am going to paint over it in the same style as scab paintings and then have an angry self portrait scribbled over the top in permanent marker. I am nearly at work now so have to finish up. Here are some pics in a random order of everything I 'be been talking about.

Angry portraits

So this is all my experimenting with using style and expression to show anger. It hasn't been going too well so far, I need to practice some expressions a few more times to nail them. There is only one I'm happy with so far. I'll keep working on them!

I'm also adding a pic of the large background I've finished. I put a layer of red, then a layer using black to put lines all over the board, then a black wash which I used a palette knife to scrape away, and then lastly a wash of red over the top. I'm going to paint a figure on it with impasto mixed into the paint to make it shiny and contrast with the background to stand out. I'm not entirely sure what colours I will use yet or how to do it so I'm going to put it aside to think over first. That's it for now.

Tessa.

2 weeks to go!! :0

The past couple days I really focused on getting my smaller scab painting finished. I have put I think 6 layers on it since the last time I showed a pic of it.
1. I made it dark blue all over (looked terrible)
2. put impasto mixed with white on parts of it
3. then a light multicolour wash
4. then a solid layer with orange, yellow, and brown.
5. Then a orange light wash
6. Next was a layer of clear impasto gel, which I textured by pressing with hand and fingers.
7. Then I splashed some red on randomly and dark brown in top corner to run down the side. I left tis part matte. I also used a knife to cut into the painting and peel away some layers in a couple small places.
8. After that I put some darker layers on the scab using matte paint to contrast with the shiny, textured skin. Plus I put some shiny red mixed with impasto in a streak across it. Here are some pics taken with my phone.
I will do another post showing other things I've been working on later.

Tessa.