Two Sisters - On the Terrace By Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
For this piece I wanted to focus on my identity through my relationships. This piece is to show how identity can be seen in relationships in your family. The inspiration behind this piece was Two Sisters - On the Terrace By Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Something that I admire in the work of Renoir is how he is able to capture light and life using color in his pieces.
The Daughters of Durand-Ruel By Pierre Auguste Renoir |
For this piece I planned on doing 2 girls sitting on a bench. This would represent the relationship between me and my older sister, who has definitely influenced my identity throughout life. I originally intended for the piece to be in full color, but for a while I played with the idea of having the people be in black and white. I decided that this didn't really emulate my inspiration very well, and decided to do it in color. I also planned on doing small pink roses around the base of the bench, which can be seen in my planning sketches. Ultimately I decided not to go with that route, as it was to much work, and I did not have enough time to complete it all the way around the base of the bench in my piece. I always planned for the piece to be really bright and colorful
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The first thing that I did in the process of this piece was create the reference in Photopea. This was pretty easy to do because I already had the skills to do this from a piece that I had already finished. I then used a projector to transfer my image onto my canvas. This method was effective because it allowed me to create the image on photopea, prior to putting it on my canvas. Because of this I was able to adjust and manipulate my work so that I would be satisfied with the result. The issues that I had with this were people bumping the projector, which would alter the image, as well as my self bumping the canvas, which would also alter the image. I only used the projector in order to transfer the image of the people onto the canvas, as opposed to the background as well. For the background, I just free drew it onto the canvas because I did not have a photo that I thought would look how I wanted it to.
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After I had transferred the image onto the canvas, using the projector, I found that there was some benefit in drawing it on my own. Because of this I decided draw the faces, and most of the details on my own. The projector was useful for getting the main idea onto the canvas, but it was not ideal for adding details, that would be important guidelines for the painting.
After I had sketched out everything that I needed onto the canvas, I began to block out the colors on the fabric. This was important because it allowed for me to go back and add more important details later. Something that I found to be particularly difficult in this stage was the shadows. I had a difficult time determining what shade the shadows should be. In order to solve this problem, I experimented with different shades of purple and gray. The one that I settled on was a mix of violet, just a bit of black, and the pink color I was using for the fabric already.
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After I had done this I decided to work on the vine of flowers under the bench. Originally I had planned for the flowers to be pink, but I realized that Renoir uses many different colors in his pieces. I decided that I wanted the flowers to be blue, and a mix of orange and pink. I liked this because it allowed for me to create a high contrast in this piece. This, combined with the green flowers, really captured the eye, and added more life to the piece. I believe that If I had the flowers on the vine be pink like I had originally intended, the vine would not have stood out as much as it does now. I also did the leaves at this point as well. I mixed a variety of greens, in order to create some visual variety. In order to incorporate this I used a technique where I didn't mix the paints completely, I didn't rinse my brush when switching between shades of green, and I switched between different shades more frequently then I often do.
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I then began working on the floor. I used a variety of lighter greens at the front of the painting and a mix of darker greens at the back, closer to the sky. I used dark brown and navy blue to create the shadows under the bench. After that I began to work on the skin. I had already started on the skin tone of people, but I decided that it was too dark. This is not something that Renoir often did in his pieces, so I redid the skin with a pale color, that was almost white, to better emulate the work of Renoir. This was a better decision because overall, it made the piece better. I then began to work on the faces, this was definitely the hardest part of creating the piece because I had a very difficult time with the shading. When I tried to do the faces, they came out looking like Victorian dolls, however, that is a it like what the girls in Two Sisters- On the Terrace by Renoir looked like. I also had a difficult time with the hair on this piece. I couldn't find the right shade of blond to use, or what color to make the highlights on the brown hair either. .
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Simalarities
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Differences
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