Catharsis
Exhibition Text
The purpose of this painting is to perfectly capture the beauty of a city night scape. I used to work during the summer, and I got out of work near midnight on some days. This allowed me to explore downtown alone after dark, and the only feeling I got out of it was serenity. The stillness of the city at night gave it a completely different character than at day.
Inspiration
For this piece I chose Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhône, and Pablo Picasso's mediterranean landscape. I used Starry Night Over the Rhône as an inspiration for what I want to convey through my painting which is that night has as much life if not more than day. As for mediterranean landscape I used as inspiration for the buildings within my piece. As I applied the bright colors, organic shapes of the buildings within mediterranean landscape to my buildings in order to create a similar stylistic choice.
Process
I began my process by building my canvas. I used two foot beams to create a “two foot by two foot” frame for my canvas. I then stretch rolled canvas unto the frame to make a near completed canvas. I then had to apply gesso to my canvas in one motion to gain the most optimal results for my canvas. Once I had my canvas ready I began painting my image. The primary focus for this piece was blending, as I wanted to improve. I first began by creating the top half of the night sky. One can notice that the night sky is not pure black just by looking up. So to make my piece in contact with reality, I mixed three parts black with one part blue, this yielded a black hue with blue highlights, this was the color I used for the top of my painting. I then mixed half and half of blue and black to create the color that I was going to use next. Once I had these first colors I began to blend them, I did this by using a technique that I learned in sophomore year of highschool. It is done by placing a dab of one color next to the other and then blend them by brushing side to side. This essentially creates a blended gradient which was optimal for my night scene. Once I have created my nightfall gradient it was time for me to add the various buildings and cosmic bodies I wanted to incorporate into my night scene. For my clouds I used white acrylic paint slightly diluted with water to create the smoggy effects for my clouds. But my favorite parts to add to this piece were the buildings. As I already considered my piece done once I added the moon and clouds. But I felt something was missing, so I decided to pain in some buildings, not knowing what style to paint them in. That's when I stumbled into Cubism, and it's then when I realized that the simple yet intricate way that shapes were created would not seem out of place and maintain a sense of unity within my piece. For my buildings I used three colors, orange, yellow, and green, no more no less. My buildings were formed by a solid rectangular color of either orange, orange, or green. Then with the last colors I added a layer of grit to my buildings wich gave them a sense of realism
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