Portrait - Twins

To wrap up this portrait I first began by painting our hair over where I initially wanted our heads to join, I followed the same process for painting the hair as I did in the post below.

I then painted the rest of our necks in using the same skin colour I had mixed for us before. I then began painting the thread that has sewn us together. I decided to use red for this as I thought it would stand out against the rest of the colours used in the portrait and draw the viewers eye to it immediately. I zig-zagged the threads back and forth between us, I then used a darker red to add depth to to the thread and added some frayed pieces sticking out from the thread to further show how we are pulling away from the idea that our internal portraits or identities are tied together or should be seen as one and the same. I then used a dark brown shade to paint in the holes in our necks that being sewn together would leave. After this I used more of the blue and green shades around these holes to show how the skin was being pulled and dragged.

After this I began on the background which I wanted to keep simple not only for time but also to not give the viewer anywhere else to look then to the uncomfortable scene I had painted. I decided to create a simple gradient from black to white for the background as I feared that leaving it all black would dull the painting down. I used a very large flat brush to create the background and to blend it all together.

In the end i am extremely happy with how this painting turned out and as a notoriously slow painter very proud I managed to finish it all in one day. With this process I forced myself to lean into my own art style and let go of any pressures that my paintings have to be hyper realistic to be good. I think this painting captures my idea for this brief well as it showcases how uncomfortable being treated together as one with your twin is. It tends to have long lasting effects on your sense of identity and often drives us to make our external portraits starkly different from each other but in the end we can’t ever escape people seeing us as one.

Portrait - Twins

As I further continued my painting of myself and my twin I realised that the way I had painted our heads conjoined looked awkward and didn’t turn out how I had imagined in my head and began to brainstorm how to fix it.

I first decided to start on the paint as I contemplated new ideas I continued using a mix of acrylic and gouche paint. I began with brown paint as the base as both myself and my sister are naturally brunette and I wanted the brown to peak through our dyed hair. I then used a variety of shades of blue for my hair to capture shadows and create depth. I kept my brushstrokes smoothed and curved to capture my curlier hair. I was very pleased with how smooth the paints layer down and overall my hair might be my favourite part of this portrait. I then began on my sisters bleached blonde hair. I found the colour hard to capture so I mixed a multitude of colours that mainly consisted of varied amounts of white, yellow orche and yellow paint. I made sure my brush was more dry when I was painting near the brown roots to make the hair look more straight. In the end I added some lines of yellow paint too to add some more fun colour and not stress too much about keeping the painting overtly realistic. I then blended the two hair colours in the middle to further push the point of how our portraits are always considered as one, this then naturally created some hues of green and cyan in the middle.

Facing back to the heads I decided first to just paint over them with the same paint I used for our skin and see if there was a way to make it work, however this still ended up looking odd and like we had a growth at the back of our heads. After some more brainstorming and asking my peers for their opinions and advice I ultimately decided to instead connect them by their necks. I wanted to then make them sewn together to showcase how the fact that our portraits and identities being tied together as one is never our choice and simply the impact of people treating us as such.

Portrait - Twins

To continue further developing my portrait theme I decided to explore the idea that often as a twin the people te your entire identity to being a twin, and how suffocating that feeling can be. I waned to capture this by painting myself and my twin conjoined as one by our heads, as this treatment can often mess with your mentality, sense of self, portrait.

I first started by getting a reference photo of both myself and my twins side profiles screaming in pain. I quickly edited the two side by side and got to work. I started with an initial drawing to figure out the composition, form, distancing the such. I used acrylic paint for this piece with a small amount of gouche paint when I couldn’t mix a colour I wanted to use and already had one available to me on my gouche palette. I laid out the base colours and got started on the shadows. The style in which I like painting in the most includes using the shadows that are naturally found in the skin (blues greens purples yellows reds the such) in their pure form,I like this effect on portraits as I think its visually very interesting, adds more colour and also because painting very realistically isn’t a style I find comfortable. I used very visible strokes for the purples and greens to keep the portrait loose.

For the back of the heads where we would join I initially wanted to make them look as if they were melting and slowly joining together almost like magnets, however as I progressed withe the painting I didn’t like the way this looked, it almost looked like we both had a weird form on the back of our heads so as I continue with the painting further I’m going to brainstorm a better way to capture this idea.

Portrait - Twins

As mentioned in the post below I wanted to add a 3D element to this piece to create a more interesting visual experience.

I gathered daisies from outside the college and trimmed their stems, I then used a glue gon to get a tiny dollop of glue on the end of the trimmed stems and stuck them down onto the painting in a spaced out manner. To me the daisies can also represent us as twins, daisies like most flowers really all look the same but they are separate and deserve their own care and to not be grouped all into one ( maybe a stretch but it makes sense to me ) I also think that as these daisies eventually wilt it can represent how childhood memories do eventually fade away.

Overall I’m very pleased with this piece I would’ve made it more detailed if I had more time on this project but i do believe this still captures my idea well

Portrait - Twins

To continue with my portrait brief I wanted to paint a picture of me and my sister as kids, having a princes tea party where I am very visibly displeased and I remember from my own memories being unhappy about it too but my family insisted under the assumption that of course since we are children and most importantly twins were going to be indifferent to doing the same activities, and that’s a theme that continued throughout our lives

I used gouche paint for this piece, I blocked out the colours in this painting and then started on the detail. I did keep the brushstrokes in the background as well as the details fairly vague as I thought that represented how childhood memories can be sometimes blurred and not remembered perfectly but the feelings from those memories stick.

Im thinking of adding a 3D element to this paining to create a more interesting visual. With the season and the weather outside im considering possibly sticking daisies onto this painting as they are in the original reference photo.

Portrait - Primary Research

I have gathered some reference photos from mother of pictures of me and my twin when we were younger ( were very cute I know )

The two that stick out to me most is the top one, where were having a princess tea party, and I on the right in the blue dress look quite displeased, while my sister is smiling even if she’s being blinded by the sun. To me it shows how we were forced to do activities together whether we actually enjoyed them or not under the assumption that just because were twins we surely like the same things. I think it would be a good reference photo for a painting.

The other photo that sticks out to me is the one on he bottom left where were both wearing the t-shirts that are pointing to each other with the text “This is my sister Weronika” and “This is my sister Wiktoria”. I think this just shows how our entire identities were tied to being twins which in the long run was so damaging. I think it would be interesting to ev just paint the t-shirts as I think they tell such a story and tie this brief together really nicely.

Portrait - Twins

To continue on with my mirror piece, I decided to add text around the painting in acrylic red paint. I added “Which twin are you again?” which is a question I heard for majority of my younger life, people around us friends, teachers even extended family members tie me and my twin into one person. It feels quite disrespectful back then and now but it also truly messes with your sense of self and your identity, or your portrait. I had many years where I never felt like my own person and I think this piece truly captures that for me, that I would’ve looked in the mirror and not been sure who I was looking at.

I asked one of my peers to help me take some pictures with this mirror, we worked in a few spots around the college picking spots with a plain background and bright lighting. We worked on different angles where i had to hold the mirror at angle that from my perspective was far away but on camera lined up perfectly.

Overall I was pleased with this result and piece as I think it lines up with this brief very well as I explained more above, I would like to potentially get better and higher qualities of this in the future and possibly work out some interesting lighting tricks to do too.

Portrait - Twins

I wanted to incorporate a 3D object in my further exploration of the brief and I had decided to choose a mirror which I bought as it reflects our portrait back to us. I decided that it would be an interesting idea to paint half of my twins face in the mirror as we were so often viewed as one and the same throughout our lives.

I decided to use acrylic paint on the mirror and did a pretty quick painting of half of my twins face, I used blues, greens, yellows and red strokes of paint for shading and kept said brushstrokes pretty loose to capture a vague reflection

I want to potentially add some text around the reflection to get the meaning of this piece, I also want to ask one of my peers to help me take pictures with this mirror so my face is aligned next to the one that’s painted on.

PowerPoint Presentation - Chaim Soutine

Below are the pictures of my PowerPoint presentation on Chaim Soutine. Chaim Soutine was born in 1893, he was a French painter of Belarusian-Jewish orgin, he made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living and working in Paris. His art. is vibrant with colour and hi s subjects have an uncanny form which drew me to his artwork and made me decide to choose him for my PowerPoint.

Artist Research - Jacqueline Morreau

In a recent trip to The Manchester Art Gallery, I came across this painting by Jaqueline Morreau which caught my attention instantly as I visually it matched the theme Ive been trying to achieve with my portrait brief.

Morreau covers the topics of Identity, Desire, Memory,Creation and Choice. Some of her work tends to feature two figures and exploring the self. Her work often features shades of warm reds, oranges and yellows as well as black and white work. Jacqueline was born in 1929 in Wisconsin in the USA and died in 2016 at the age of 86. She’s greatly appraised for her works which contribute to the feminism movement.

The image above that I was fortunate enough to see in person is particularly captivating, the bright red figures in the front instantly stand out to the viewer and as your eye begins to wander the painting you begin to notice the details in the painting, the shadowy figures, the pomegranate behind the figures. Next to the painting was an explanation of the painting which I have included however I chose to relate it back to my theme of twins and how no matter the differences between you, you are always tied together by the simple fact that your portraits are too similar.

I want to explore this further in a painting of my own and focus on showing myself and my twin physically tied together if not by ourselves then by society.

Portrait - Twins

To continue with our brief Eoin introduced us to the book binding facilities in the college. With this in mind I decided to look at how our friends and the people we choose to surround ourselves with represent us greatly, almost like our friends are a collective portrait of ourselves, we all influence each others tastes and mannerisms.

So I decided to make about 12 quick charcoal sketches of both my friends and my twins friends and put them together into this book. I was shown how to use the electrical paper guillotine in the college which cuts the paper in a very precise way. Theme I was shown the machine that does the binding with hot glue to bind the cover and the spine altogether.

I was happy with how I was able to present a part of this project in a physical way, meaning that someone can pick it up and flick through it. I will try to decorate the cover in some way or at least give it a title so anyone seeing it will understand what I’m trying to present. If I have more time I might try to decorate each page or write something more in it to make it more visually interesting. However either way I found this process very interesting and fun. It’s useful knowledge to know the facilities and machines available to us in the college and I’ll be able to keep this in mind for any future projects to come.

As previously mentioned I think that the people we choose to surround ourselves with strongly reflect who we are, like a portrait so I wanted to show the portraits of the people both me and my twin are closest with.

Artist Research - Jenna Tas

On a recent visit to the Limerick City Gallery I noticed this piece by Jenna Tas which is titled “Pillow of Sweet Memories” which I found very interesting. Visually I found the use of such colourful textiles packed together so tightly to represent how our dreams are filled with so much reflection on who we are, like portrait.

Jenna Tas is a Jewish artist who works across disciplines in drawing, painting, photography, textiles and installation. She has recently presented a solo exhibition at Museum Elburg in The Netherlands and has exhibited widely throughout her career.

Looking at this particular work from Jenna Tas that Ive gotten to see in person and perceiving it as connected to our portrait brief has made me consider if there is a way I can include textiles or possibly some 3D materials to push my brief further.

Portrait - Twins

To continue with my portrait brief I decided to compare one of my favourite songs ( Buying Smokes by The Academic ) and my sisters favourite song ( Radioactive by MARINA ) to explore any similarities and differences in our music taste.

To do this I had prepared a sheet of paper for each song and then played each song on a loop while I painted and drew whatever came to mind from both the sound and the lyrics of each song. This was a very cathartic experience for me and it made my work very free flowing and abstract which is something Ive been looking to explore in my work for a while. I thought of what colours to use for each song, I represented certain beats, sounds, guitar solos the such in heavy or splattered brush strokes, I drew and painted objects and ideas which directly related to the lyrics I was hearing. The process overall was quite exciting and made me really submerged in my own music taste and helped me explore my sisters.

I used multiple media for these pieces, gouche and acrylic paint, oil pastels, coloured pencils, charcoal, paper and cut out things, and sharpies. This also helped to create a varied and “chaotic” look for both pieces as both songs have a quite rock sound to them.

Overall I found it beneficial to explore how in my head mine and my twins music taste is visually quite similar in the colours I chose to represent the songs with but yet the pieces themselves are so different. It was a process I thoroughly enjoyed and I believe it tied back to my theme of twins and our internal differences despite our external portraits being so similar.

Portrait - Twins

To continue with my theme of Portrait and twins I asked my sister for items that we have in common, and compared them to each other in a small series of paintings. I compared our headphones, lip products, her car keys and my use of public transport and our bad habits.

I used gouche paint to create these paintings and focused on the values and shadows especially in these, using a deep blue for the shadows. I decided to then hang these up alongside the pastel portrait I did earlier in the project ( these have now been taken down and thrown out by someone without my knowledge )

Overall I was happy with how these paintings turned out, if I were to do these again I’d focus on making the shades for the shadows more consistent as they look quite rich and full in some and watered out in others. I also would’ve picked more items to do if I had a time to do a full collection of these. I believe that these paintings capture the intricacies and the small differences between me nad my twin even when at first glance our portraits look extremely similar, our internal portraits are very different.

Portrait - Photography Workshop Cont.

With this we then began to take photos from a multitude of angles to find what best captured the despair of drowning. After taking some photos we decided to strip the set-up back to just one mannequin hand, no leaves and no roses. This simpler look helped to focus the photos more on what was happening and gave the images a more calm,melancholy feel rather than a dramatic chaotic energy. We then added a yellow light to the bottom of our set-up to give the images a warmer tone which I really enjoyed. Lastly I put a blue plastic box over the camera lens which gave the entire photo a blue hue, this with the yellow lighting coming from the bottom truly looked as though Ophelia was drowning in the depths of the water and in my opinion gave the best result.

Overall this workshop was incredibly fun and really helped me think outside of the box and reach outside the scopes of typical painting, it also helped me gain some photography and lighting skills which I have no doubt will be useful as I progress through my course.

Portrait - Reimagining Paintings Photography Workshop

Today myself and 3 other peers took part in Paul’s photography workshop. After a brief presentation explaining the workshop and showing examples of reimagined and recreated paintings and their significance in culture we were given the task to reimagine John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia”.

The painting itself i inspired by the story of Hamlet and how Ophelia was driven to madness by Hamlet and drowned herself in a river. As a group we wanted to capture the sadness and the tragedy of this story. With the props available to us we chose to focus on Ophelias hands drowning and less so her body. We used mannequin hands and hung them behind a dark backdrop, we then added a fake fern, plaster leaves, twigs and fake roses tied up with fishing wire behind the hands to capture a sinking and drowning in a river effect. We then added a sheer shiny fabric in front of all of this to create a soft and mystical visual of the water. Next we placed a lamp in front of a large plastic box as when the room was dark it created lighting that replicated the ripples of water.

Portrait - Life Drawing

Today I took part in Eoins life drawing workshop in which we drew our model, Jeff using various mediums. I chose charcoal as mine. For this session we worked in 20 minute poses and the model used a chair a towel as well as a net on a rod. The model was also lit up using a lamp so we as a class got to work on shadows and light. I found this to be a really exciting and a new way to explore life drawing and the charcoal helped to capture the dark shadows and the eraser I used helped to capture where the light hit the body and created highlights. After a break I moved to a different position to try a new perspective for another two poses. Some of the poses I found challenging but that’s just part of the fun and the process. Overall I found this workshop extremely enjoyable and look forward to the life painting workshop we will be doing next week.