Semester 1 Final
Van Gogh was a Dutch painter. He lived from 1853 to 1890. He was mostly a self-taught artist; however, he did observe and take advice from many colleagues and masters, like his cousin-in-law, Anton Mauve. He did not start to seriously paint until the age of 27. From this time on, he made over 900 paintings. During his life, Van Gogh struggled with mental health and was even admitted into an asylum in 1898. He is famously known for cutting his own ear off in 1888. He created some of the most recognisable paintings, such as his Starry Night (1889)
Van Gogh's paintings hold a lot of color and emotion within his brushstrokes. I was very drawn in by these factors. The way you can clearly see each stroke, and how the vibrant pops of color that seem as though they would not belong, end up tying everything together. I liked this style, and seeing this, I was instantly inspired by what I could do for my final.
The paining i chose to do is: Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler), it was painted in 1887, using oil paints. On one side of this canvas is his painting, The Potato Peeler, and on the other side, he painted this painting, Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. It is displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in gallery 825.
Plan:
When I first saw this painting, I thought of doing scraffito, then painting the different brushstroke colors in those scraffito spots. However, I then realised that that is not quite 3D, and I realised I could get a similar effect by using coil building.
To construct it, I rolled out a slab, then sketched a rough drawing of the painting, with the lines mostly being where I would put the bigger coils. I then made my coils and started laying them down, taking care to make them all different sizes for the different parts of the painting they will be used for. I then underglazed it, using all of the vibrant colors to the best of my ability. After I was done with all of my coils, I decided to incorporate my original idea into it, by scraffitoing the background, and painting in it the many colors I used in the body of Van Gogh.
Slab, with design scetched into it
slab with most of the coils
compleated coils, underglaze and scraffito
Reflection
In making this final, there is nothing that I feel as though went wrong. However, I did not end up having enough time glaze and fire my piece for the second time. This is mainly because I planned to use the extruder to make the coils for this piece, but the piece that makes the coils a smaller size was missing for the duration of my time making this piece. Because of this, I had to put it through the extruder, then roll it out much more to get the desired thickness of my coils. This made it so it took many more classes to do coil building of this project, leaving me less time to fully complete the rest of my final. Other than this, I am beyond happy with how the colors and shapes of this final turned out. I think it looks a lot like the original painting, and i acheived what I wished to with this final.
Final Piece
