Aoife Mc @k00293186 - Tumblr Blog

Portrait

I chose to base my project around portraits of domestic life, how people can be reflected in the spaces they occupy. I have mostly been focusing on kitchen scenes. I believe they tell a story of the people within them.

In my main painting for example, the jug in the top left corner has been my granny’s milk jug for as long as I can remember, it reminds me of her and all the cups of tea we have shared together. I am a very sentimental person and I like to associate objects with people and memories.

#portrait #painting

Sketchbook

Portrait sketch of child me

This picture was taken in my old childminders back garden where I would sit in her wheelbarrow in the summer.

She passed away recently and in her eulogy her daughter mentioned how her kitchen table was a reflection of her at that moment in time, whether she was baking or cooking or minding some of us children. I realised how much that related to my project so I wanted to do some sketches of photos and what I could remember from that time.

I don’t have many actual memories from that time, only through photographs, but I’d been in her home more recently and I could picture her kitchen table clearly so I went with my imagination for the rest of the sketch.

#art #sketchbook #portrait

Testing layouts of my work in the studio.

#art #portrait

Artist Research - Clara Peeters

Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels c.1615

I learned about Clara Peeters in a CCS lecture with Louise. At first she just showed us the ‘Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels’ as a regular still life, until she told us to look closer and we saw a tiny portrait of her in the reflection of the jug.

I loved this aspect of the piece, it adds humour and I thought it fit so well with my ideas surrounding the brief. It’s a beautiful vibrant still life, a portrait in itself but it also has an actual portrait of Peeters herself within it.

#artist research #painting

More sketchbook pages

#portrait #painting #sketchbook

Artist Research - Diego Rivera

I went to the Tate Modern in London over the weekend and I saw this artwork by Rivera, and I loved the composition of it. The still life aspect reminded me of my work for the project. I had never heard of Rivera before and I’m not usually a big fan of the cubist style but his colours are really appealing to me.

The colours he uses are much more dull then what I would typically use but I love the layout and the flatness of the piece, as well as all of the different patterns.

A lot of Rivera’s work includes large scale mural work but I really like his cubist style especially in this portrait, Portrait of Marevna 1936.

#painting #artist research

Finished piece.

More progress images

Details

I love how this painting turned out. I’m glad I decided on the pink background, it adds a childish playfulness to the painting and I tried to not be too perfect or picky when painting it. I plan on cutting down one side of it where the paint ends.

In hindsight I would have added more detail to the plate at the back.

#art #portrait

Today’s unfinished painting, using acrylics.

The reference photograph was taken during supper with my granny in West Cork.

Progress pictures.

Details.

I plan on finishing this painting tomorrow.

#art #portrait

Artist Presentation - Marilyn Minter

#art #portrait

Life Drawing

This week was our last week doing life drawing with Jeff. We were given free rein to use whatever materials we liked.

Initial charcoal drawings.

Oil pastel drawings.

#life drawing #art #portrait #colour #oil pastel #charcoal

Drawing from reference images with oil pastels.

#art #oil pastel #portrait

Painting Week 4

Today in the studio with Eoin. we got to work on our own ideas. I started on an idea I’d had to make a paper 3D sculpture painting of one of my reference images.

I made a quick plan of action and got started using some newsprint as a test run.

I really liked the result so I moved onto harder white paper.

I changed the layout slightly but I like how it looked and I got started with painting it.

This is the finished piece. I chose bright colours because I wanted an element of childhood nostalgia in it, similar to the Mad Hatters tea party in Alice and Wonderland.

I’d like to try another version but add details to the plates etc.

#art #colour #painting #portrait

Painting

In the afternoon I did another self portrait but this time I used paintbrushes instead of the pallete knife. I chose blue and orange as complementary colours and used the same pose as the previous portrait.

Progress.

Finished piece.

Details.

I really like how this piece turned out, using paintbrushes is more in my comfort zone but I like the look of the orange and blue together.

#art #painting #portrait #self portrait #colour

Painting

Today we did self portraits with Sylvia. She gave us a quick talk at the start of the day about the basics of colour theory. We began with thumbnail sketches and mixed up either a warm and cold colour OR complementary colours. I chose a warm and cold colour to start.

Colours.

Thumbnail sketches.

Progress pictures.

We used pallete knives for the first portraits.

Finished portrait.

I like the colours I chose, they go well together and I’m happy with the amount of detail I managed to get in the face, last time I painted myself as a blob because I couldn’t get any detail with the pallete knife.

#portrait #self portrait #painting #colour

Painting Week 3

Life painting with Sylvia. Similar to the previous week, we started by mixing up our colours (3 tones), setting up our easels and drawings thumbnail sketches. Today Jeff was in a lying down pose which is something I’ve never drawn before.

I started with this small sketch but after encouragement from Sylvia I decided to start on a bigger piece of paper to challenge myself.

We started with the background, moving up to the foreground.

I find painting with one brush and only 3 tones to be quite challenging in itself and I’m not very happy with how this piece turned out but it did push me outside of my comfort zone within painting.