Art Critique

Griffin Marshall

            For this project, I painted a still life. It consisted of four bowls of china, three larger bowls, and a potted plant. This project was difficult for me; the hardest part of which was drawing the set. Drawing was very difficult, as every piece of the set had to be in a perfect position or else the painting would be messed up. After several instances of trial and error, I was finally able to draw the set correctly and accurately. The first thing I painted was the backdrop. It featured a teal cloth with white oval shapes on it. After that was finished, I painted the white tablecloth that the china was positioned on. Following the tablecloth, I started to paint the bowls a creamy white color that differed from the color of the tablecloth, but wasn’t too different or contrasting. Next came the pot that the plant was in; a solid navy blue color. The designs on the china were one of the hardest components of the entire piece. They were so meticulously painted onto the china, so they were so hard to recreate on canvas. The plant, which ended up to be the final aspect of the painting, were the hardest to paint, because recreating a plant on canvas and making it look realistic and three dimensional is no easy task. I think I did a decent job of it, though. I am decently satisfied with this project because I turned a difficult painting into a nice looking piece. I think that it could be neater, though, and it could be a little more realistic. In conclusion, I think that I did a suitable job in painting this piece. 

To finish off the project, I finished painting the leaves and then the branches. I also added in the shadows created by the china. When the lamp shines across the set, it creates shadows. Those were a lighter gray color. In conclusion, I think that I did a decent job of painting this still life. It doesn't look like a perfect painting, but it isn't too bad, either. I am decently satisfied with this art. 

During this period, I painted the designs on the china and painted the leaves on the plant. The designs were especially difficult because they were small and very detailed; a very challenging undertaking for an inexperienced artist. After I managed to get that done, I moved on to the plants. When I painted those, I painted the leaves different colors depending on their position on the branches. 

In this painting, basically all I did was I painted the golden lines around the ovals on the cups and bowls. I also made the background a

This day was spent painting the pot blue, as well as painting some of the china a light-creamy color. The cream color looks good against the white because if it was white as well, it would blend in

On this day, I finished painting the background of the still life. The table and the rest of the set are yet to be painted, but finishing the background provided a good border for the piece that made painting the rest of it easier to do. 

This was my first attempt to paint the background. I had a lot of trouble in drawing the set correctly, but in the end, it all worked out. The color of the cloth in the background looks somewhat like the 

This was the original set of the still life that I was to paint. 

The point of this project was abstraction. For this project, I was to paint three different interpretations of a picture, with each one being an abstraction of the other. For instance, I painted a first picture of an image, and then abstracted that image in a second painting. Then, I made a third painting, which was to be an abstraction of the second painting. The painting I chose to do was a picture that I had taken of a boardwalk descending to a beach, running through bushes. There is the ocean in the distance, and the clear blue sky above it. For the first painting, I basically painted the image as it appeared in the photo, but I left out some of the details. For instance, some of the details of the clouds and sky were left out of the painting, as well as for the boards. For the second painting, I made an abstract version of the first painting, but focused less on the details of the project, and the individual shapes of the object, and more on making each and every object stand out. I turned all of the shapes into either squares and rectangles, with exception of the bushes, so that every object had four corners and straight lines. However, I think that the second painting was not as good as the first one because of how realistic it looks. For the third painting, I abstracted the second painting. The main difference between the second and third painting was that the third painting is much brighter and “cleaned up” than the second one. Also, the bushes feature a different design. The colors are much brighter in the third painting than in the second painting. In conclusion, I think that abstraction is neat, but is not particularly my style of painting. I am more realistic and I like to have a set objective and a set way to achieve that objective instead of having multiple ways to get there. Its very confusing and I don’t like to think of myself as a very creative person. I think that my art could have been neater in the first two paintings as I was in the third. I like the  finished product because at first, I wasn’t sure what I would do for this project and very confused at the idea of abstraction for the first time, but I figured out how to do it and went to work from there. I think this was a successful project because it served as an introduction to abstract art in a simple way. 

Since the three paintings have already been completed, all I did for this one was add another coat of yellow around the outside of the canvases. I think that the bright yellow brings out the other individual colors present in the paintings. Overall, I think this painting was a success because of how i learned to paint abstract paintings. I was unsure at first, but now i kind of figured it out and I think it went well.