Project Evalutation

Project Evaluation

My theme for my A2 fine art personal investigation has been 'abstract landscapes of Lithuania'. In the beginning around August and September my ideas were to paint either city landscaped of Lithuania from the photographs I have taken or very bright and unrealistic in colour paintings of nature landscapes in Lithuania.

After I had gathered photographs that I needed I began experimenting in the styles of Scott Naismith, Vytautas Kasiulis and Joseph Mallord William Turner, both by observing their paintings and my own photographs.

At first it seemed that there were a wide range of landscapes I could paint, which seemed worrying as I wanted to focus on something more specific.

In the beginning my main drawback was my own perception of what landscape paintings should look like, I had a thought that they have to be very detailed, clear with a specific subject matter even if they were abstract. This in some ways prevented me from expressing myself to my best abilities. However whenever I tried painting a city landscape with lots of buildings in the style of Turner (image bellow) I realised that I was focusing at the wrong kind of landscape paintings as I was too focused in getting my images right that the however all result would not look creative, I realised I needed to allow myself to just experiment in the most expressive ways, without being afraid to mess something up or have a unclear subject matter which does not particularly define anything.

After this I let go and began to focus a lot on colours and textures and how they combine together.

As I already mentioned I looked at three artists in particular.

In the beginning I believed that Scott Naismth was my main artist and that I wanted to relate my work strongly to his style. I also wrote and artist analysis about him and one of his paintings in particular called Sisters of Glencoe’. This analysis helped me understand the reasons Naismith paints the way he does and the techniques of his mark making as he published a lot of videos of himself painting online. It was also interesting do discover that one of his artist influences is Henri Matisse, which exhibition was on whenever I visited Tate museum. I did paint quite a few experiments in Naismith's style, however as I progressed through this project I slowly departed from his style and developed it and changed it in my own way to create my own style and techniques.

(Above some of my artwork inspired my Naismith's style and artwork.)

One artist that I chose because he represented my project in particular was a Lithuanian artist Vytautas Kasiulis, I liked his bright and unrealistic paintings mainly because he created his own world within his paintings, with stories and meanings behind them. In his artist analysis I analysed one of his panting called 'Mulen Ružas’ (Moulin Rouge) and compared it to Antoine Blanchard ‘Le Moulin Rouge ' panting to get a real understanding how unique Kasiulis can make the same subject or place look in his style. I also had a chance to visit his Museum and see a large amount of his painting from up close, this really showed me ways artists paint as well as understand that larger scale makes paintings look more spectacular. Here are some images of my work in his style bellow.

The artist Joseph M.W. Turner I did not think of as my main artists, mainly because I had a bad start working in his style, as I found painting in watercolours (as he does in some of his work) unsuccessful, however I later realised that his influence is not about using the same media as he does, but understanding his painting process and his beliefs about art. For instance whenever I had a chance to look at his painting ‘Yacht Approaching the Coast’ in London Tate museum, I found out that he often layered and repainted sections of his painting to such point that the main subject matter would no longer be clear. I also researched that he followed the movement of Romanticism which focused on nature being seen as a natural environment and focused on individuals their originality of imagination and experiments, it allowed organic development and emotion. This gave me some inspiration and confidence about my work, as I realised that art does not have standards of what is right or wrong, and that I can paint however I want if that is how I see or imagine that something had to be shown, I don't have to make my work state a clear subject matter as ambiguous paintings allow more freedom and imagination to the eyes of the viewer, hence over time Turner became my main artist influence. I also carried out some further analysis where I analysed one of his paintings called “Norham Castle – Sunrise”. Bellow is some of my artwork inspired by turners paintings and style.

After carrying out sufficient amount of artist experiments, I discovered that in fact my initial idea of painting unrealistic coloured and bright landscape paintings that show a distorted reality has changed. I now started to consider that subtle in colour and textured paintings, can look as effective and yet still abstract and unrealistic in my own way.

This is when I decided to start painting larger scale as my sketchbook was limiting me. I began painting on larger pieces of board inspired by my own photographs.

I also narrowed down the type of landscape paintings I want to paint, being sea side beach scenery and forest areas with rivers or lakes, as I find these subject are more interesting and open to more possibilities in terms of techniques.

Throughout this project I have had the opportunity to use a large variety of media such as: acrylic paint, oil pain, watercolours, board, canvas, ink and other media too. This allowed me to narrow down to the media that fitted my theme, style and work most effectively in relation to the scale and size of my art work

My final piece

For my final piece I had to reflect on all of my work and plans that I have created during the course of this project.

I had to look upon my strengths and weaknesses in relation to my work, and choose the most successful and refined techniques and styles.

Below are examples of my work that had the strongest influence for my final piece.

Including the large board paintings shown in the previous page. Also I decided that the best way to show all my learnt skills and techniques would be by working from three most influential photographs of natural landscapes, as all of these images have helped me discover new techniques hence focusing on them all, hence for my final piece they allowed me to really focus on the best aspects of my work and create a strong final piece. Here are the photographs bellow:

When creating my final piece I went through a long process of layering media, to create a textured in depth painting of a sea like landscape. Here is the process below:

One of the harder challenges in creating the final piece was making sure all of the media and colours would blend together in harmony, instead of standing out all over the place as this would draw too much attention in non specific parts of the painting. However as I had carried out a sufficient amount of experiments and refinements of work, I had a better understanding what media to mix with what, and what colours compliment and blend well together.

As a whole this final piece painting is meant to look quite blurred out and subtle, as I didn't not intend to bring out a specific feature of the painting that would define the subject mater in clear detail, but rather create a abstract surrounding, meaning every viewer can use their imagination as to what they see or feel when observing my painting, in a way I want to pass out what I remember and feel about my home country for those who haven't seen it, hence making it personal to me.

Overall I think the time taken in this project has allowed me do develop my art skills and understanding in a strong way, which was all down to research and continuous experimentations, it will also benefit me in preparation for my exam, as I am now more confident with my art work overall. It is interesting how my initial expectations and ideas for my final piece of a landscape painting have changed as I progressed with my work.

For my A2 Fine Art exam I would like to improve by;

• Continue to work outside my comfort zone, to challenge myself for the best results I can achieve and to allow me to be creative and expressive.
• Focus on areas in art that I find more difficult to do, such as pencil drawings so that I could improve my weaknesses and gain skill, and once more challenge myself.
• Instead of focusing on painting only, look into other types of art, such as collages, to diversify and differentiate my work.