After submission of my assignment 3 piece to my tutor and discussing with her in our skype tutorial about the more successful piece coming out from my daily self-portraits project from week 9 ‘Portrait objects’, I decided to submit that work in a slightly adjusted presentation for assessment in July 2017. I abandoned thus the originally submitted assignment 3 piece completely.…
Tag: portrait

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 9 – ‘Portrait objects’
This week’s goal is to make each day 9 smaller paintings on one page capturing portrait partials and other objects that are directly influencing my self perception. By that I will paint a collecting of items that at the end present myself. I took some inspiration from Carole Schneemann‘s ‘Partial Portraits’, 1963 and the Cluster pictures by Juliette Blightman hanging on…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 8 ‘The Eyes of the Skin’
Task for this week: Bodily engaging painting – body painting – painting with my body – another self-portrait “The Eyes of the Skin” (Juhani Pallasmaa) Traditionally vision was considered superior and alongside words the dominant aspects in art history and aesthetics. Other senses as touch and smell were since Aristoteles considered as inferior. Pallasmaa (2005) looked into those aspects in the context…
Project 2 – Conclusion on my portrait paintings
What technical demands did you encounter? => Mastering various media (e.g. oil sticks) was a challenge. Also I noticed that I am tending to work rather realistic and concerned about accuracy when working on larger scale and when spending more time at my easel. More distance to my easel and with less preparation work and less time typically allows me to…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 7
Plan for this week: Revision and reflection Form the previous weeks there are several aspects and approaches that I would like to follow further: Color to depict mood and atmosphere Luminosity through color and tonal contrast and layering Additive and subtractive painting, textured grounds Bodily interaction I think it would be beneficial to dedicate one week to one specific theme. Task…

Project 2 – Exercise 4: Conveying a character
First I am looking up the word character to possibly understand some variations of it (http://www.merriam-webster.com/): character – the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves : someone’s personality – a set of qualities that are shared by many people in a group, country, etc. – a set of qualities that make a place or thing different from other places or…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 6
Plan for this week: Further exploration in context, different viewpoints, working in oil Learnings: Luminosity: using japanese paper with oil, absorbing oil (learning from part 1) and translucent to backlight Working in oil takes really more time – challenging for one painting a day. The last paintings were actually done in two days. Focusing on one focus area can make the overall…
Project 2 – Exercise 3: Creating mood and atmosphere
Idea: Atmosphere of mental health, sadness, isolation, melancholy based on my work experiences as an art therapist. Using myself as a mirror (and with a mirror) and as a carrier for the mood that I experienced while working with patients in a psychiatry clinic. General symptoms of depression are: fatigue, worthless, hopelessness, emotionless, dumb, emptiness, anxiety, insomnia, sadness or ‘feeling blue’. General a high…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 5
Plan for this week: in oil and acrylic, leverage my self portrait learnings, new poses Learnings: with a coloured ground, still wet scratching is another way to build shapes (reminds me at the scratch works at school time in oil pastels, black overpainting over coloured spots) Luminosity: based on strong tonal contrasts or by multiple transparent layers Concept: Mirror reflection…
Project 2 – Exercise 2: Head and Shoulder Portrait
Contextual: The last exercise brought me closer to using flesh colors and color pads application to depict believable forms. For this exercise I would like to look at a different approach that I studies partly already in my personal project ‘Daily Self-Portraits’: looser brushworks and bolder color use with at times thicker and thinner application. Overall to achieve a ‘lighter’ painting…

Daily Self Portraits: Week 4
My plan for that week was to exploring planes in color with less focus on linear qualities. For some of the works I got inspired by works by Walter Sickert and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye for their use of muted and broken colors. I was travelling so I used rather pastels due to space limitations (#23-28). I find those materials quite useful to take…
Project 2 – Research Point: Portraits that convey mood and atmosphere
See also my research on ‘Self portraits in art history’ – click here. The color blue: Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) ‘Blue Series’, 1902 – ‘Two Sisters’, 1902 (http://www.arthermitage.org/Pablo-Picasso/Two-Sisters.html) or – ‘Blue Nude‘, 1902 (http://www.pablopicasso.org/blue-nude.jsp) or – ‘Melancholy Woman‘, 1902 (http://www.dia.org/object-info/d1442e0a-e2b0-43cb-ac03-07f34acd5471.aspx?position=6) Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944) – ‘Melancholy III‘ (http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/edvard-munch-melancholy-evening-on-the-shore-1896). Picasso’s ‘Blue series’ is known as his transition period towards…

Project 2 – Exercise 1: Self-Portrait
Since the beginning of this part ‘Portrait and Figure‘ I started with my personal project of one self-portrait a day (available on this blog at: https://ocapainting1.stefanschaffeld.com/?cat=64). Exploring various media, viewpoints, angles and proportions of surrounding space. Experimenting with different painting approaches and expressions. Most of them are painted within one hour. Selection of first three weeks of daily self-portraits: in watercolor, ink,…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 3
Learnings: Working with palette knife enabled me to work more investigative with additive and subtractive marks With some inspirational references to other artists (#17-21) I was looking into other perspectives of painting. Plan for next week: Exploring planes and less drawing in paint. Inspirational sources: Elizabeth Peyton (#19-21), Jonathan Yeo (#17-18) newest on the top: #21: Gouache on paper (30 x 40 cm) =>…
Project 2 – Research Point: Self-Portrait
An overview of self-portraits in art history From previous researches and exhibition visit dedicated to the self-artists-portraits (Schaffeld, Sep and Dec 2015) I understand self-portraits as I wide area that goes far beyond representing merely the image of the self. It can help to reflect on the artist’s identity or to mirror the image of the “ME” the artist wants to convey.…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 2
This week I decided to follow just my intuition and to work in some other materials and with stronger emphasis on surface and additive and subtractive painting. I focused more on broken colors and limited palette. Learnings: With a more experimental approach like in my sketchbooks I got a loose approach. Experimenting with oil sticks was fun – challenging on…

Daily Self-Portraits: Week 1
This is my start with daily paintings of myself. Without prep drawing painting directly and immediately on the supports. Using paint and brushes, spatula or at times other tools. I kept quite an open and experimental approach this week. Just enjoying working with paint and my tools and see what results is coming out. At times I tried in the…