Year 9 Still Life and Vanitas Painting Artist Statements
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Ella F
Artist Statement During the making of this task, I learnt about many different artists that have still-life and vanitas art, and their different techniques and styles. I chose Michael Zavros, who is a still-life artist, to reference in my painting and its style. When choosing the photos that we previously took in class, I decided to pick one that was quite simple yet could be made into a quite precise and detailed painting, therefore, I decided to choose Michael Zavros as my reference artist. Michael Zavros art is always photorealistic, neat, and cantered, which was perfect for the painting I wanted to do. He is an oil painter, but I used acrylic, which is the most similar paint we have at school. While I was painting, I realized that it was quite difficult to paint neatly and still get the colours right. So, the first few lessons I struggled deciding if I should carry on through the painting or re-do, which caused me to be behind for a little while. However, when it became closer to the due date, I planned to keep continuing and continue using Michael’s techniques and tricks. In the end, I was very proud of my result, however, if I was to do this task again I would definitely spend more time getting the right colour before I begin painting, this is a mistake I made a couple times during this task. I would also try to improve at my blending and making a gradient effect on my canvas, as this is what makes the effect of shadows and detail, which Michael Zavros does for a realistic affect. Overall, I think I did well on my painting and I’m proud that I continued on.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Eloise M
Artist Statement
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In this unit of work we investigated Still Life and Vanitas of both historical and Contemporary artists. We arranged out own still life object and took some photos using lighting. My artwork was inspired by the style and composition of Deb Mostert’s, a Brisbane based contemporary artist. She commonly uses Watercolour as a medium to create a realistic feel with layers of colour and tone. I best captured this in my still life painting by using the chosen medium, water colour and using realistic colours.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Emma D
Artist Statement I was given the task to create an artwork in tribute to a current contemporary artist. I chose to reference an artist named Deb Mostert. Deb uses watercolour and ink and acrylic paint to create realistic and meaningful pieces. The artwork I have created, pays tribute to Deb’s style, as I have used watercolour to create the focal point of my image and acrylic to complete the border. I have created an artwork with the intent of portraying a still life painting with themes of Vanitas. The still life aspect comes from the selection and composition of everyday objects. The vanitas theme comes from the brush techniques, objects and in some areas, colour. For Example, I have included an animal’s skull, a clock and flowers in the focal point of my image. I have chosen the skulls as it is a representation of the certainty of life and death. The clock is another way of showing the time. The flower is used as a representation of the “bloom of life”. Furthermore, in vanitas paintings, these are all common object used to express themes of Vanity. Throughout the process, I slightly modified my creation from the original plan. I painted the border in acrylic paint to make the watercolour focal point pop. All in all, I believe I was successful in completing this task as I managed my time effectively, completed my piece in detail and finished my creation with little deviation from my original plan.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Emma S
Artist Statement I am very proud of what I have achieved this term for my Vanitas style artwork. I feel I have followed as many motifs in Edward Collier’s vanitas still life works as I could. Some of those included; the use of dark, warm colours such as blacks and browns, the use of tonal quality to display one cohesive light source in the direction of the painting’s shadows and highlights, the inclusion of symbolic items such as a globe, a violin and a bone, the focal point being a messy arrangement of symbolic items, as well as the presence of an extremely dark background. I believe I have been successful in taking inspiration from Edward Collier’s 1662 painting and applying his Vanitas techniques in a modern-day context. My favourite thing about my artwork would be the highlights and shadows of the tablecloth. It was so incredibly hard to create tonal quality within the tablecloth but in the end, I was able to create some life-like shadowing. I also really love the way the glass bottle turned out. I tried so hard to use my artist mind and eye to create a life-like image of what a glass object would look like, considering the light source I wanted my painting to have. Something I believe I could improve on would be creating tonal quality in the statue of David. I’m not sure why but it was really difficult to make the same sort of contours and highlights when painting the statue, compared to the rest of the work.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Faith S
Artist Statement Whilst making this Artwork I took several steps to ensure that the design was meeting the criteria and vanitas/still life representations. My first step was to choose an Artist that I believed represented the vanitas textures and tones. Edward Collier was the artist that I choose to use for my Artwork. I believed that Edward would be the best-chosen artist because he focused on the representations of life, time coming to an end and history. Edward was a Historical Artist that focused on still life paintings during the 1600s. Overall, I used acrylic paint for my Vanitas artwork. My painting featured a clock, globe and book. I used these items because the clock represents time running out and the globe represents life and growth. The book featured in the painting is also a representation of history. When I analysed Edward Colliers paintings, I noticed that these items were focused on in his artworks. To keep my painting connected to the chosen artist I included these items to help represent the time Still life/Vanitas theme.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Gabriella G
Artist Statement My artwork is a painting which reflects my focus artist Pablo Picasso as he is an abstract artist including all objects painted in abnormal shapes and colours. I was able to make my artwork in the style of Picasso as I weaved a coloured photo of my still life artwork with a black and white copy to create small boxes in which I were to individually paint.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Isis K
Artist Statement
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Picasso uses several techniques that were followed with this piece. Thicker lines, flatter colours, less detail in the features of the paintings, allowing for more simplistic shape structures (rather than form), contrast, abstract and colours. The style of Vanitas is shown by the bull’s skull in contrast to the bottles, flowers and jewels which all represent life and wealth, which are aspects of a vanitas. To fuse the style of Picasso and Vanitas, the skull was painted warmer colours with contrast in the form of a bright yellow- This connects to Picasso’s style of using colour to show a mood he feels looking at an item and what the item represents. Blue was often associated (by Picasso) with mourning and a cold, dark atmosphere, similar to what someone would assume death to be like. However, the objects that symbolize wealth are brighter and warmer colours, implying them to be how life would appear to someone- Happy, joyous and bright. The composition of the still life that’s been painted is that of a Vanitas, though to avoid crowding in the items, plenty of space was made among 3 separate and smaller compositions. The jar and fruit, the bottle and beads jar, then finally the skull an flowers. All of this combined with the abstract style, lines, composition and colour together allows for a piece that can be interpreted as a Vanitas in the Style of Picasso.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Jayda M
Artist Statement Sir William Nicholson is a British painter of still life, portraits and landscapes, working across varieties of media, producing printmaking, poster design, costume design, stained glass, illustrations for children’s books and even designing a theatre etc. My artwork reflects Sir William Nicholson as its distinctive colours and the use of rough and jagged textures and lining embraces the only object in this artwork, the Chanel perfume bottle, to loom.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Jessica S
Artist Statement Over the course of this term I have studied still life and vanitas. Over the course of the term I have drawn objects with different mediums such as pens, charcoal and graphite. I have also done small case studies on artists such as Barry Flanagan. As we moved through the term, we moved onto vanitas and studied it so that we could create our own vanitas still life. Studying these subjects led me to discover Harmen Steenwyck who is a 16th century vanitas artist. He was my reference artist throughout this assessment. I used a few aspects from his paintings to use in mine such as wooden tables as all of his paintings has wooden tables and he was very good at painting objects as though they were shining so I had a go at that.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Kaya A
Artist Statement As I started to create my artwork, I had confidence in what I was producing. After about a week of lessons and working on it in class I no longer had a clear vision or direction of where is was taking the painting. Furthermore, I continued to chip away and adding layers of texture and tone. Now revealing my final product, I am happy with what I produce. The only section of my work that I’m not particularly happy with is the globe. Other than that, I think that I went well as I have successfully recreated my digital image while using similar technique to Hans Heysen. Consequently, I believe I can improve in several areas. Firstly, at the beginning I didn’t use my time affectively as I wasn’t adding enough paint, nor the number of layers required. As a result, I have learnt that I need to take risks and manage my time better. Secondly, when establishing my digital image, I was not thinking about how I was going to recreate the still-life. If I were to recreate or do another still life painting again, I would think about the objects I am using and the difficulty of trying to produce the object the same way but through paint. Thus, I think that I have successfully referred to Hans Heysen’s artwork through my still life painting. In the production of his work he used large brush strokes and clear but minimal detail. As shown in my painting its evident I have used these techniques to relate to his style. Overall, I believe I went well but I can improve in many areas while also referencing Hans Heysen and his style of work.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Lucia D
Artist Statement
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Paying homage to Van Gogh I applied the expressive brush stroke technique to build up layers of tone in the background of my still life and vanitas painting. Firstly I arranged a still life then photographed the objects. The photograph helped inform the composition for my painting. Overall I feel the artwork is effective with the use of colour and application of acrylic paint.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Lucy L
Artist Statement I think that I have produced an artwork in the style of Deb Mostert quite well. I have done a sketch in black pen and then included bright, colourful watercolours, which she does quite often. I kept the painting quite realistic and did not change the composition, but I made the image more lighthearted, like she does. I kept the same type of colours however I did not use outlandish colours as she often does as it would not fit the vanitas style. Instead of using a watercolour pen, as she does, I used brushes as I find this easier to use. I did not leave much white space, but I tried to keep the strokes loose and messy as she often does. I think I could have done better at shading and shadows as I struggled with that and will endeavor to improve this in the future.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Olivia A
Artist Statement
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My still life and vanitas painting was Inspired by Picasso. I incorporated artistic techniques in multiple ways from colour scheme to the formal qualities. I built on layers of the painting process starting with a translucent wash and building to an opaque application using tone and detail. The abstract geometric shapes were considered to emphasise the cubist style. The formal qualities of line, shape and colour are used throughout the composition with varying angles and contrast.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Roxy P
Artist Statement Overall I think the painting follows the art style of Deb Mostert with the watercolor. The painting has broad shapes and shading but not intensive realistic features. Using watercolor wet on wet technique to do layers I attempted the style of Deb Mostert with my own still life painting.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Samantha R
Artist Statement Overall, the artwork was adequate and represented all the necessary features of a vanitas artwork. Although Edward Collier did most of his artworks using oil paint I did not as they were unavailable but the mood of the artwork was still achieved.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Sarah E
Artist Statement My painting has been inspired by still life and vanitas in the style inspired by the historical Vanitas artist Edward Collier. I firstly set up a still life and photographed the objects using lighting. My aim was to capture the essence and mood similar to Edward Collier. I used acrylic paint and ink to build up layers of tone in a darker colour scheme. I carefully considered the composition and elements in the artwork and was inspired by the symbolism of the objects.
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Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Sienna H
Artist Statement I feel I have worked well during this task I have been on task and have been able to finish the task during the assigned timeframe. I believe the end piece came out very well and was reasonably similar to the plan at the start of the process and to the image taken in real life. I believe the final artwork was suited to the reference artist of Paul Cézanne as similar techniques and painting style was used. The first layers and wash of the artwork were done in ink, which was the most similar material to the oil painting that Cézanne often used as his medium to work with. The painting is in the Vanitas and Still Life genres, much like many of Cézanne’s works. The artwork has a sombre and dreary atmosphere, as with the selected focus painting of Cézanne’s, Still Life with Skull. My artwork contains Vanitas inspired themes as seen with the combination of everyday objects with a cow skull and bright flowers on a dark background.
Title: Artist:
Still Life and Vanitas Painting Trinity F
Artist Statement I think that the skills and techniques used in my artwork so far have been reflective off of Deb Mostert’s water colour and still life work. This is because I have painted using the skills and techniques Mostert has used, and because my art follows a similar structure and style. The style incorporates a variety of paints- Mostert particularly using acrylic and water colour paints. These are the things that I have used to achieve my best interpretation of the still life/ vanitas work- using Deb Mostert’s art works as a reference.