Inspiration
The inspiration for the set up of the illustration were artists Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Rembrandt. Le Brun had no formal training in art due to her sex but even as a young artist her work was extraordinary. At 19 she joined the Academic de Saint-Luc, and became immensely famous for her portraits. A lot of her success came from her service to Marie Antoinette, making around 30 portraits of the queen. Her association with the queen earned her a spot in the Acadamie Royale in 1783, but in 1789 Le Brun fled France because of the Revolution. She feared her alliance with Marie Antoinette would backfire on her. Out of her country, Le Brun traveled throughout Europe and was commissioned by many people and earned a lot of money, and eventually returned back to France in 1805.
Rembrandt was a Dutch painter who made many baroque style oil paintings. Rembrandt was famous for his ability to paint people with such detail and was commissioned by Hendrik van Uylenburgh in a studio academy to make more portraits. Rembrandt would eventually teach other artists in Ulyenburgh's academy His reputation took a hit when he impregnated an unmarried woman, and the information of the treatment of his ex wife was made public. Rembrandt also struggled financially during this time and had to action his estate as well as his artwork, but even then he still dealt with debt. His never recovered from his financial situation, and his children died from epidemics. Rembrandt mysteriously died on October 4, 1669.
I want to use the setting and environment of Elisabeth Le Brun's self portrait and The Scholar at the Lectern by Rembrandt. Their stories do not have to do anything with the illustration, but rather the activities they are doing in the painting. Both the subjects of each painting are positioned in a way that they are showing their professions of areas of interest, they are working. I wanted to incorporate that aspect of each painting, but replace the people in it with other historical figures.
Rembrandt was a Dutch painter who made many baroque style oil paintings. Rembrandt was famous for his ability to paint people with such detail and was commissioned by Hendrik van Uylenburgh in a studio academy to make more portraits. Rembrandt would eventually teach other artists in Ulyenburgh's academy His reputation took a hit when he impregnated an unmarried woman, and the information of the treatment of his ex wife was made public. Rembrandt also struggled financially during this time and had to action his estate as well as his artwork, but even then he still dealt with debt. His never recovered from his financial situation, and his children died from epidemics. Rembrandt mysteriously died on October 4, 1669.
I want to use the setting and environment of Elisabeth Le Brun's self portrait and The Scholar at the Lectern by Rembrandt. Their stories do not have to do anything with the illustration, but rather the activities they are doing in the painting. Both the subjects of each painting are positioned in a way that they are showing their professions of areas of interest, they are working. I wanted to incorporate that aspect of each painting, but replace the people in it with other historical figures.
The images above are the two historical figures that I wanted to replace the subjects with from the previous paintings. For context, Jan Van Eyck was an Early Northern Renaissance painter. He created many realistic oil portraits during the 1420s. Little is known of his personal life, but his artwork is recognizable and famous for its lighting and realistic technique. He painted religious subjects and men with high positions of power. His painting, "Portrait of a Man in a Turban" is believed to be a self portrait. What I take away from what is known of him and his paintings, Jan Van Eyck was a master in his field of art.
Thomas Linacre is not an artistic historical figure, but he was an important physician. He studied medicine in Italy at the University of Padua, and In England he studied medicine again in Oxford. He became a personal physician for Henry the 8th. Knowing Henry the 8th personally, Linacre sought to make better regulations to earn the title of a physician, and with his permission, he founded the Royal College of Physicians in 1518. This ensured that there would be stricter regulations to become a physician, and there would be fines for unlicensed self proclaimed physicians handling medicine. Linacre also translated medical works from Latin or Greek origin. He died in 1524.
Thomas Linacre is not an artistic historical figure, but he was an important physician. He studied medicine in Italy at the University of Padua, and In England he studied medicine again in Oxford. He became a personal physician for Henry the 8th. Knowing Henry the 8th personally, Linacre sought to make better regulations to earn the title of a physician, and with his permission, he founded the Royal College of Physicians in 1518. This ensured that there would be stricter regulations to become a physician, and there would be fines for unlicensed self proclaimed physicians handling medicine. Linacre also translated medical works from Latin or Greek origin. He died in 1524.
Planning
Regarding my theme, I grew up with a lot of people that were similar to me, and had the same interests as me. So when I entered high school I was surrounded by a lot of people with different interests and goals from mine and that exposed me to new subjects and ideas. I think it's important for everyone to expose themselves to contrasting and unfamiliar subjects, regardless of how much knowledge you think you have.
I chose to paint these historical figures because they were tremendously significant in their professions of art and science. I thought it would be interesting to take the portraits of these two masters-who both lived during the Renaissance period-and make them work on each other's field of profession. I wanted to do this because it was peculiar to me that even when these two men were alive during the Renaissance, a time when both art and science were reborn, they did not explore their "opposite" field, when many people were. Jan Van Eyck focused on art, and never in science, while Thomas Linacre focused on science and never in art. I wanted to make two paintings where that would be different, where they would be taking part in a profession neither of them tried in real life.
I chose to paint these historical figures because they were tremendously significant in their professions of art and science. I thought it would be interesting to take the portraits of these two masters-who both lived during the Renaissance period-and make them work on each other's field of profession. I wanted to do this because it was peculiar to me that even when these two men were alive during the Renaissance, a time when both art and science were reborn, they did not explore their "opposite" field, when many people were. Jan Van Eyck focused on art, and never in science, while Thomas Linacre focused on science and never in art. I wanted to make two paintings where that would be different, where they would be taking part in a profession neither of them tried in real life.
One of the things I've always struggled to draw is people. The thought of immediately drawing two people on my final board was intimidating, and I began to sketch my ideas first. One of the most simple ways to draw people is the Loomis method. This method breaks the shape of the face into 3 sections. I began practicing drawing the basic structure of the head and face (left) without any features, and I drew a variety of heads from different angles to get myself used to the Loomis method. I tried to not use any other references, because for my project I only have one reference for each historical figure, and it's hard to decipher all their exact features. Once I got comfortable with that, I moved on to adding the historical figures' features from different angles. On the right image you can see that I made Thomas Linacre's original position with no features, and then with features. This was easier to draw because I just copied my reference. Then, below that you can see that I made Thomas Linacre's side profile with and without features. The most challenging part about this was figuring out the structure of the nose, because it's hard to tell from the original picture. Lastly at the bottom I have the sketch of Jan Van Eyck. His sketch was easier to make because the portrait of him and the Scholar at the Lectern are positioned in the same way. I felt like this was the best result I could get with my skill and decided to move on to drawing the rest of the body.
Drawing bodies was a challenge. I had an idea of how I wanted the two men to be positioned, but I wanted to find a way to draw them that didn't look awkward and unnatural. I found a book in Mr.Chad's room about drawing the human figure (left) and took advice on simplifying the way the human figure is drawn, so I could make a rough sketch of what the final poses should look like. I wanted Thomas Linacre (scientist) to be in the same spot as Elisabeth Le Brun, but I wanted him to be focused on what he is painting instead of having him look at the viewer to show that he is interested in art. Likewise, I wanted Jan Van Eyck (artist) to be in the same pose as The Scholar at the Lectern, but instead of looking stressed, I wanted him to look focused on what he would be studying if he were a physician. I drew my ideas side by side (right) to see how they would look if I drew them that way. To make it more obvious that they were interested in their subjects, I made Linacre hold the paintbrush high so he could see it at eye level, showing intense interest. I also did that with Jan Van Eyck, making him hold a glass bottle of urine (which physicians used to study) close to eye level, instead of having him look down at a book, because to me looking at the book looks like a chore, instead of showing genuine interest. After I had practiced drawing out my ideas, I moved on to drawing my final ones.
Process
Here are a couple of pictures that show my process of sketching my final ideas into the sheets of paper. Starting with the head was the least intimidating part because I had had a bit of practice from sketching the heads with the Loomis method in my sketchbook, so I started with that. I knew that getting the characters into the exact position as Le Brun and Scholar at the Lectern was going to be difficult, because they are different people and different people have different body proportions, so I did not focus on making them exact, I focused on making it similar. Making the head was the easiest task, and adding the facial features was a bit tricky because I had to make a lot of guesses, since there I had no pictures of the historical figures, just portraits. I had to make more guesses based on their clothing because in Jan Van Eyck and Thomas Linacre's portraits their clothes are dark and hard to see. They were hard to make out but I could tell that they both wore a similar looking coat, and that was what I drew. The coats looked pretty big to me and that blurred the edges of their body proportions, making it easier to avoid awkward positions..
To transfer the images from the sheet of paper onto the final board I did the same process that I did for my block print. I took the sheets of paper, turned them over, colored the back side with pencil, placed it on top of the board, and traced over the image to transfer it. Before I traced the image I placed tape on all four corners to make sure that the paper didn't slip as I was tracing. My first attempt at tracing was not successful, because the lines were too faint to make out any of the original drawing. So I took the paper, taped it again, and traced the image again but with more force this time. Surprisingly the lines were still faint but they were visible enough for me to trace over them, referencing the drawing on the paper as I did so. Not all of the details that were made on the paper transferred well into the board, and I omitted them because I felt that too much detail with pencil would get smudged once I began to paint over it. I started painting the image in the right first because the background looked simple enough to recreate.
I began with the darker colors of the background, the black, browns, and dark reds. I used acrylic paints which meant that the paint dried fast, and it was hard to blend the colors smoothly. I used acrylic because it looks very similar to oil paint but I did not want to use oil paint to complete two boards without any experience with it. A lot of the time I had to work on the background and had to stop, wait for the paint to dry, and continue working so that sections wouldn't come off. Since the paint dried very quickly, I had to work in layers. Layering the paint was a lengthy process because I wanted to work in large sections of the painting in one sitting, but I had to wait for the paint to completely dry so it would not ruin the work I had done before. For example, in the 3rd image to the right I blended all those colors of brown, yellow, and gray-green together during work time, and I let it dry until I was able to paint again. The 4th image to the right was hard to create because I had to recreate the same colors I used in the 3rd image hours later, and then I had to make them darker to match the background of The Scholar at the Lectern, and use them all at once before they dried up so I wouldn't have to recreate them again. This was a process that was repeated multiple times. In the 6th image, I layered the Turban of bright red so that I could add the details of the shadows later. Then about half an hour later, I used the same bright shade of red and mixed it with black to create the shadows. When I began to add the shading, it was messy, because the paint is translucent against the bright red base. So I have to wait even more for the translucent paint to dry to add another layer of the same color until the layer is thick enough and not translucent. And this same process was used with the book, skin, and clothes.
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The second painting took less time to make because there was not as much variety of colors like the first painting. Most of the colors are black, gray, and brown. The yellow that is in the first image to the left was easily overpowered by the darker shades of purple-gray in the second image. The process for making this painting was the same as the first, layering after a base color of acrylic paint has dried to avoid any peeling off. The process this time was more straightforward and less difficult because I had gotten used to it. Another factor that made it easier to finish faster was the amount of paint I had. For Linacre's coat, I used blue, black and white to make a gray-blue base and then blend it all with either black or white to create shading and lighting. This was all done in one hour after I had access to more paint. A mistake that I realized I should have done is to paint the person first before the background, because when the background is done first and covered in a thick layer of paint the pencil sketch can no longer be seen. I realized I made this mistake in image 5, when I could no longer see the sketch of Linacre's hand holding a brush. I had been focused on evening out the color of the canvas he was painting on in image four. I used a big brush to even out the color and amount of paint I was using, and it was working out good, until I finished and realized I had covered up the hand. I continued to finish the color of the canvas and worry about the hand later. After I did, I layered the paint of Linacre's skin color in a hand-looking shape, and after it dried I added blue, red, and brown to make a brush. It does not look like the original plant but I wasn't able to draw on top of layers of acrylic paint without tearing them off.
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Experimentation
Color-matching is one of my biggest strengths and priorities when working on a project, but I had to test my skill before working on the final piece.
I experimented with color matching. The background colors were simple to recreate because the acrylic paints I had were very close to the colors from the inspiration pieces, I just needed to alter how dark or light they were. The more tricky color matching was the skin tones. For Jan Van Eyck, I could see that he had a fair complexion but I wasn't sure about his undertones. From the images I used, it seemed to me that his skin had more orange tones. So I mixed orange with yellow and lots of white to create a base color for his skin. To create a lighter version of the base I just added white, and lighter sections around his nose, eyes, and mouth because that was where the light source was closest to. To create shadow, I added a bit of burnt sienna to the base color, and I added it to is neck, because it was farther away from the light source. To shade the lips and a bit of the ears, I used the color for the shadow, and added white to create a light pink-brown.
Matching the skin tone of Thomas Linacre was the same for Jan Van Eyck, except that I added more yellow than orange to create the base color. because from what I could tell from his portrait, he had yellow undertones. I still added white to make the base color, and even more white to make the lighter areas around the front of his face. In both of my paintings the light source is coming from the left, so the shadows are on the right. To make Linacre's shadows, I used the base color plus brown and burnt sienna mixed together and shaded the back of his neck. Their skin colors are not exact, but this is the way that I was taught to create a light skin tone. I never used any black for the shadows because that makes a muddy, unnatural look, especially because the shadows were not that intense.
Critique
When comparing my illustration to the inspiration, there are obvious similarities. The backgrounds of the paintings The Scholar at the Lectern and Self Portrait by Elisabeth Le Brun are the same. The set up is the same, I kept the canvas from Elisabeth Le Brun, the dark color palette in the background from both inspirations, the desk and book position from the Scholar at the Lectern, and the point of view the same too. The position of the characters is similar too. Their poses are not the exact same, but they are not so notably different, because Van Eyck and Linacre are both facing either the canvas or desk just like Le Brun and The Scholar at the Lectern. The shadows and lighting is similar, because there are clear contrasting lights and darks. The point of focus are the two characters in the middle of the painting, like the original inspiration, and the space taken up by Jan Van Eyck and Thomas Linacre is relatively the same.
My inspiration pieces were both made using oil paints, while my illustration was made with acrylic. I used acrylics because they look like oil paints but they were harder to blend. Self Portrait by Le Brun was a portrait of an actual artist, the artist herself, Elisabeth Le Brun. The Scholar at the Lectern shows a regular scholar who was not an artist. In my illustration, I have a real life physician who is portrayed as an artist and an artists who is being portrayed as a physician, which completely changes the roles of the original stories behind the paintings. I also changed what the objects were and how they were positioned in my illustration. I have an anatomy book instead of a regular stand, and I added a glass bottle with urine in my Van Eyck illustration. The poses of the characters are not supposed to be the same as the inspiration, they are their own, showing that Thomas Linacre is interested in art, and that Jan Van Eyck is interested in science.
My inspiration pieces were both made using oil paints, while my illustration was made with acrylic. I used acrylics because they look like oil paints but they were harder to blend. Self Portrait by Le Brun was a portrait of an actual artist, the artist herself, Elisabeth Le Brun. The Scholar at the Lectern shows a regular scholar who was not an artist. In my illustration, I have a real life physician who is portrayed as an artist and an artists who is being portrayed as a physician, which completely changes the roles of the original stories behind the paintings. I also changed what the objects were and how they were positioned in my illustration. I have an anatomy book instead of a regular stand, and I added a glass bottle with urine in my Van Eyck illustration. The poses of the characters are not supposed to be the same as the inspiration, they are their own, showing that Thomas Linacre is interested in art, and that Jan Van Eyck is interested in science.
Reflection
This project was Inspired by Elisabeth Le Brun, Rembrandt, Jan Van Eyck, and Thomas Linacre. The overall painting process was easy to create because I have used acrylics for a great majority of my art projects, and matching the colors was simple to do as well. The most challenging parts of this project were figuring out the anatomy and facial features of my historical figures, and drawing them out in a way where it was easy to tell who they are. I would say that my people-drawing skills have improved, because before this I had never tried the Loomis method, and now I know how to use it. The layering of the paint was difficult to do. It took a long time and was the most tedious part of the process, because if I could not layer on top of my colors, the painting as a whole would look awkward and one dimensional. Waiting for the colors to dry was also annoying, because if the paint was drying on the board for a long time then the paint I had on my palette would dry too. Watching the end result resemble the inspiration was very satisfying. I hope others can see the connection between my inspiration and illustration.
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
-The styles are very similar, since I was just taking different historical figures and placing them in different paintings.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The artists are portraying how others work, clearly showing what they are interested in.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A lot of people tend to continue to work on themselves and their other area of interest instead of trying new subjects
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
People, no matter the age, can always strive to learn new skills and techniques no matter how good they are at one thing
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Artists will continue to do their passion no matter what obstacles may come their way
-The styles are very similar, since I was just taking different historical figures and placing them in different paintings.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The artists are portraying how others work, clearly showing what they are interested in.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A lot of people tend to continue to work on themselves and their other area of interest instead of trying new subjects
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
People, no matter the age, can always strive to learn new skills and techniques no matter how good they are at one thing
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Artists will continue to do their passion no matter what obstacles may come their way
---. www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1953.html.
The National Gallery, London. Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun | Paintings | National Gallery, London. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/international-womens-day-elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun.
---. www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1822.html#biography.
---. Jan Van Eyck (Active 1422; Died 1441) | National Gallery, London. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jan-van-eyck.
Thomas Linacre | Encyclopedia.com. www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/thomas-linacre.
The National Gallery, London. Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun | Paintings | National Gallery, London. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/international-womens-day-elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun.
---. www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1822.html#biography.
---. Jan Van Eyck (Active 1422; Died 1441) | National Gallery, London. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jan-van-eyck.
Thomas Linacre | Encyclopedia.com. www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/thomas-linacre.