Size: 30.48cm by 30.28cm Medium: Acrylic On Canvas Date: September 2022 Exhibition Text This piece was slightly inspired by my sister. Anytime she sees a pappus (white dandelion) she must blow them. The style was influenced by the artist Mary Cassat. Her main style is impressionism, and she usually paints children. I made this piece by layering multiple colors of acrylic paint on a canvas. I used her impressioniststylein the background. Cassat tends to make large strokes in every which direction in the background of the focal point. This is to draw attention tothe focal/center point. The focal point is usually the child but, in my case, it is the activity the child is taking part in.
Inspiration
Mary Cassatt was an artist of the mid 1800's and early 1900's. She focuses on impressionism, modern art, and American impressionism. Her mother Kathrine Johnston was an artist as well, she influenced Mary Cassatt to create art as a mentor. Later in life, she went to school and traveled in Europe where the well-known artist Edgar Degus and Camille Pissarro became her colleagues and mentors, which heavily influenced her art style. These artistsspecialized in impressionist work which is mostly how Cassatt became an impressionist. Many of her rat work depicts women or children which is because she was an advocate for equal gender rights. She also had two siblings pass while they were still incredibly young which is why she paints children so often. Degas's impression had a big hold on her because of him she experimented with her art and used various materials such as distemper and pastels. This led her to start creating much of her work with pastels, Degus helped her find her styles. When I first saw her artwork, I thought it was unbelievably beautiful and loved the use of color. Both Little girl in a blue armchair and the sisters have texture and layers. The color within the texture adds great depth. When creating my piece, I will use Cassatt's as a reference to how to layer and create texture since that is especially important in impressionism pieces. I will also try to incorporate bold colors like Cassatt to draw a spotlight to the center or focus of the painting.
Little girl in a blue armchair 1878, Mary Cassatt
The Sisters 1885, Mary Cassatt
Planning
My first step in planning out my piece was creating a color chart. Since impression involves many strokes and layers, I thought it would be helpful to create a base color for each implication of the piece. This will help everything stand out on itsown and notblend. The base color may be mixed with white or other colors to get the necessary shade, but these are the colors I will start with. I mentioned all the colors I will be using for each part of the piece and at the bottom, I made a color scale to help me visually see which colorscomplement one another. I decided to follow a cool-toned color scheme likeCassatt.
For my next planning page,I need to figure all the material and how I would use them for this piece. I wrote down each material and visuals. I went intodetails about what they would be used for. This helped me decide and plan out ahead of time as well.
Here I sketched out several aspects of the painting. This was notthefinallook, but I sketched out individuals of what I wanted to be in the whole piece. From here I was ableto decide if Iwanted in my final work or not because I had that vision of what it could potentially look like.
Experimentation/Process
I started off with a 1ft-by-1ft square canvas that I made.
I liked how it looked so I continued the technique with a darker shade of green. I was using a bigger brush to make sparse strokes in different directions.
I am continuing the method I used for the greenery but trying to create movement within the water. I added white to try to emphasize that.
Then after a couple different sketches I sketched my idea out to serve as a guideline for the painting.
I continued this same thing with different shades of green to layer it to add depth.
Continuing the layering, I used a different shaded blue and created a slight ombre where I focus the dark blue more toward the bottom to create some depth. Mixing and layering different shades or colors with similar undertones was a major key with this piece
These were the colors I was going to use for layering the background which would represent the trees or nature. I used yellows, different greens
Here I really like how it was coming along. I did notwant to mess it up toomuch, but I did feel like it needed more layers, so I just added smaller and lighter less noticeable strokes throughout.
Here I found a better method for the bridge. Before I was just making slight strokes and layering multiple colors on top of one another. For the bridge,I made a solid gray base underneath since the bridge was not as big as the background it would be harder to fill it in with only stokes. Having a solid base for the bridge made it easier to layer the color and ensure everything was filled in. After the bridge,I also filled in the person with the base colors.
I began making yellow paint strokes in a horizontal direction and followed that with blue and green. and a blue that had a strong green undertone.
Since here I had a good base for the greenery I decided to focus on the water. With this it was important to create intentional movement like a stream.
This was the finished product after I added more details on the girl. I added more tones that are similar to actual skin.For example, everyonehas lighter and darker tones throughout their skin. Everyone either has a cool, neutral, or warm undertones which are important to consider. So, when customizing the skin tone, I added red and yellow withbrown so that it represents natural skin with warm tones.
Compare & Contrast
Little girl in a blue armchair 1878, Mary Cassatt
Pappus September 2022, Kaleigha Taylor
The Sisters 1885, Mary Cassatt
Similarities The texture of both my painting and my inspirations have texture. To create this texture, it is layered in multiple strokes in which the direction the strokes are intention to create purposeful movement throughout the piece.
Differences The main way my piece differs from Cassatt's is the detail not the children. The focus on her painting is the children, they are the focal point of the piece. Whereas in mine the child is not made the focal point, the action they are parting in is.
Reflection
This was my first time taking on the impressionist style. I think I did well in someaspects, but Icoulddo better in others to helpappear moreimpressionistic. For example, the bigger stroke technique mirrored my inspiration well,but Ithink in instances where Ineeded to use smaller strokes it was a little harder to give it that impressionist feel. I do like the layersmethod because I can apply textureandmovement in the piece and different color values. I can use warm colors underneath to give a warm undertone and vice versa. I was inspired by my younger sister. She loves picking up the white flowers and blowing them. I developed the idea from my inspiration though, her name is Marry Cassat an impressionist artist. She often paints children just doing childlikeactivities. When I was brainstorming what I wanted to do my younger sister came to mine. The biggestchallengeIhadwhile painting this piece was thebridge, it took the longest to finish. It was difficult to get the look I wanted at first, but I figured out that adding high and low lights within the bridge gave it the wood-like look I was going for. My favorite part was creating the greenery. It was the easiest, but it was the first part I tackled so I was able to figure out what worked for me and what did not. I hope when others view this piece, they can relate to it. I have always blown these flowers when I was younger, so I hope it is a shared experience with others.
ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork? It is able to clearly identify the relationship between Mary Cassatt and my work because the similarities in style can be easily seen. She uses a technique that requires wide strokes in multiple different directions I tried to utilize that technique within my painting. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? The point of view that my research has about my inspiration is that she used another artist as her mentor to develop he own style. Her personal life reflects what she chooses to paint. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? Traveling and meeting new people and artists can help develop one technique to help them truly express themselves. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?. My central idea in my research revolved around impressionism and what influences the artist to take on that style. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred that people such as mary Cassatt tend to create art from things that have emotional value.