Since my portrait was dry enough to work on top of, I added the daisies to my shirt that would represent innocence and explain the upwards movement of my head and neck as if I am trying to escape it.
The addition of the daisies is very subtle which I really like. I also tried digitally editing my piece as a bit of an experimentation as I bring this project to a close. I ended up creating a growing wall from me shirt up to the top of my head, making me look as though I am suffocating and fighting for air against a wall of innocence which just worked really well with the narrative of my work.
My human figure painting is an attempt at showing the perspective of how I felt in the beginning as I was very content with this image. It is very much a continuation of me feeling content with the innocent perception people had placed on me to eventually feeling distress and desperation, wanting to break free of this view I thought would affect my chances to be seen seriously which is shown in the portrait.
I tried to appear content with my body language but my face while my face is distorted as my face is where I show the emotions within my own mind like I did in the portrait painting.
The two paintings are definitely a series following the same narrative and I think it is important that they are not viewed without the other as they both show different perspectives to the story.
I am unsure as to whether I want to build on this painting but due to the long drying times of oil, I would need to wait before doing so.
I have created a resolved portrait piece that will be accompanied by a human figure painting. The portrait piece shows the emotion from my perspective, the desperation of wanting to break free of what I thought was a clouding perception of innocence and childlikeness.
I used my references as good inspiration for application through sharp brush strokes that help gave the piece a lot of life and movement while also contributing to the dark mood of the piece despite the very light back drop being present that gave me some contrast and linked to purity and innocence.
I took a reference image of me wearing a shirt with small daisies on which I will include in the painting but drying times are not enabling me to do so yet. The daisies are an important part of the piece as they also represent innocence.
Since this story of trying to break free of an innocent and childlike personality is a narrative that plays in my own head, I think I want to to tell it through myself which is when I started thinking about compositional ideas for a painting.
I did some research and found that I was drawn by mostly human figure conpositions as I felt as though the emotion of the people was expressed so strongly along with variying application methods that changed along with the emotion of the pieces.
The piece on the far right really captures the kind of emotion I would like to go for which I think mostly come from how the artist applied his paint that created these harsh lines around the figure making his movements seem very rigid. When placed side by side with the others I really started to notice that affect of application where calmness was around so was the softness of paint.
I think combining both innocence and desperation could make for something quite striking in the end.
One of most stand out things when it comes to meeting people online is that everyone has a perception of everyone’s personality, looks and behaviour despite never seeing each other’s faces, which is something you don’t get when meeting new people in a real life setting.
This was definitely something that occurred to me as most of the people I met online had this pre conceived idea that I was very child like in an innocent way mostly because of the cute small avatar I had in game and that my voice sounded quite young.
Although this perception of me carried over when meeting them, it didn’t bother me at all because we had created a family environment where they would usually look out for me the most which I appreciated but when you want to be taken seriously or seen as an adult it can make it very frustrating, I noticed this when I started to become close with one of the people I met there, his name is Daniel.
I suddenly felt like I wanted to break free of this comfortable, innocent child mask that people put around me to hopefully be noticed by someone I had feelings for, it was like a desperation, a race against limited time to show those feelings.
The funny thing is, is that he did see me seriously and this image I thought he had of me just wasn’t the case at all. In fact he saw right through it.
Since this was a big thing for me, I want to explore and perhaps create something that shows the desperation of trying to break free of this preconception that others placed on me and hopefully build a segment of this narrative of meeting my online friends in real life.
When looking at the brief for this project I instantly thought of a couple of ideas but felt as though they were very generic and in the end would create something way to literal but my mistake was thinking about the end product so early.
My first thought is about an experience or memory of when I met my online friends for the first time, ending up having feelings for one of them.
The other is an original thought I had at the beginning of Drawn from the city which was about the plague with my interest in medieval history and the large ties that has to the present day and Edingburgh.
I have decided to delve into my first idea because I think I will have much more passion and drive towards it since it is so personal, giving it some longevity throughout the 3 weeks.
