Julia Glover

Main Idea

The main idea behind my independent project was to show my personal growth as an artist. In grade 7, I started getting more serious about my art, putting in extra time and effort to make each piece look the best it could. The first thing we learned about in grade 7 was how to draw Zentangles, a simple group of patterns that are repeated to create a design. During the Zentangle project, we also had to pick an animal to draw I choose a lion. Due to the Zentangle project, lions have always been a huge symbol to me as a student artist. Though I thought my work on the Zentangle project was okay, I wanted to draw a lion again to see how far I had come as an artist.

 

Since this was a project and I did want to challenge myself, I decided to try painting rather than drawing, a medium I am far more comfortable in. Though I enjoy painting it is still a medium I have trouble working with. This art piece is also supposed to represent how far I had come as an artist and how I had improved, so it only seemed right that I use this project as a way to improve my art skills.

 

Inspiration

The artist who originally inspired my art piece was Dadao, a painter based in France. The artist was hard to research as his website was all in French and the only information was about how the art was to be sold. However, the art on his website was very interesting. The art on his website consists of paintings of pop culture icons but with a little bit of a colorful twist. Dadao uses a wide variety of bright colours to show value in his art rather than shading, a skill I thought would be interesting to learn how to do.

 

As my art piece progressed, I took inspiration from artists on Etsy who painted on jean jackets. The artist who really grabbed my attention was Sheila Rose, an American artist based in San Diego. Rose had painted a wolf using a blue, pink, and purple colour palette. This art piece helped me to paint the fur and main of the lion.

 

Steps

1. Pick a picture of lion to paint.

2. Break the picture down into simple shapes.

3. Prep the jacket using Gesso

4. Draw the simple shapes onto the jacket.

5. Use the simple shapes on the jacket as a guideline and sketch the lion onto the jacket.

6. Paint the face of the jacket paying attention to the shadows and highlights.

7. Paint the main of the lion.

8. Add some final touches around the face of the lion, connecting it to the main of the lion.

 

Materials

• Jean Jacket

• Variety of paint colours including white and black

• Paint brushes

• Gesso

 

How did the idea/project evolve over the course of its completion?  Describe your process of creation from initial idea to completion.

My project changed very much over the course of the couple weeks we had for this project. My original idea was much more colourful then how it turned out. Dadao's art had bright blotches of paint, making each piece look effortless and entertaining. The paintings he made also used colours as a method of showing shadows which I had wanted to do as well. As my piece progressed, my style became more and more detailed, straying further and further away from how my inspiration painted. I like how my style had changed over the span of me making the painting. However, I still want to revisit Dadao's art style.

 

What do you believe your next step should be, following this artwork?
 

As the jacket began to look more complete, I had more people saying that they would have liked to have one of their own. I didn't think much of this information at first until Brie, my art teacher, said that I should try selling the jackets and make some money. This made me consider if it would be at all possible for me to sell the jackets to possible buyers. I would love to try and start a mini business selling the jackets.

 

What did you learn from this artwork that you could apply to future projects?
 

 

During this project, I was able to learn more that it is okay to stray from a path as long as you don't end up regretting what you did. I learned this as my painting style changed from how I had originally wanted it to look. I didn't regret my decision to use a more painterly style because it allowed me to be able to build on the skills I already had. For example, I was able to learn how to shade and highlight using paint, a skill I was not very confident in before this project.

 

Did you achieve your goals in the completion of this artwork?

 

 

My main goal was to learn how to use bright colours while painting. Although I did use colour in my painting, my original plan had many more colours. Since I did use colour my goal was completed, but I wished I used more colours throughout the painting. I would love to add more colour to my next jacket and try and avoid using black in the painting, replacing it with colour.

 

What are the important pieces of information concerning the comprehension of this artwork that may not be immediately visible to the viewer?  What do you need the viewer to know?

It is important that the viewer of my art piece understands why I chose to paint a lion rather than another animal. I choose to paint the lion because it was the first major art project of mine. Since the lion was the topic of the first major art project of mine it has much symbolism  to me as an artist because it reminds me of how much experience I had when I first started drawing and painting and how much I have grown from there. Growing as an artist was also a large part of this project. I wanted to see how I had grown as an artist and how my style had changed.