Title: Maktha Forest
Size: Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas Completion: August 2022 Exhibition: I wanted to try my hand at a baroque style of painting a landscape from Xenoblade Chronicles because of one I had made some time ago. It was the 3rd game this time because I had recently finished it and wanted to express my love for its scenery. |
Inspiration: Water lilies by Claude Monet. This piece was used as an example of a work we could use as a reference during an art class in an earlier year. This project I also had done a similar thing and used an environment from a video game as the reference. The piece is a part of an entire series of 250 oil paintings all focused on water lilies. (the image provided is extremely saturated due to a lack of being able to find it exactly.)
(Water Lilies by Claude Monet) |
The other inspiration was xenoblade chronicles, a video game that is near and dear to me. The series is known for outstanding world design and I am always enamored by it. And while I wanted to do another area from the first game I decided it would be better to do one from a different game, the 3rd game's rainforest area : Maktha forest. I chose it as it is arguably my favorite area of the game despite the other picturesque locales.
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Experimentation: I began by outlining what I wanted to do. I wanted another baroque-style painting of a Xenoblade chronicles landscape. I reasoned out The Bionis leg (specifically the area of Gaur Plains). This painting would stand out from my last painting in this style but may not be from my previous works this year. So I thought of a landscape from the second installment of the series.
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As I was brainstorming which landscapes come from this game I started to think that most of these landscapes that are iconic or beautiful, are quite alien to earth either with bizarre flora, or terrain especially. As such, I realized I wanted a more grounded and earth-like painting that just so happened to come from a game. As such, I just made a quick rough sketch of Uraya, an iconic yet alien-looking environment. I might come back to this one if I could come up with one for the third game.
Seeing as I had just recently played the game, the landscapes were more vivid in my mind. However, since I first saw it I was enamored by the area of Maktha forest, a large jungle-like area with large waterfalls and lakes and ruins of humanity's previous "life" with large skyscrapers nestled within. I had originally planned to use those buildings as the main focal point because of their importance to the world-building of the game, but moments leading up to the outlines on the canvas I ultimately switched to the waterfalls of the first half of the region as I thought it would be easier to recognize should I show somebody.
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Process: To begin the process, I start by creating a rough outline of where everything was. However, this was done freehand, so it's not up to scale. As such, I feel this is both to my benefit and detriment. But I started by painting the water at the bottom. The reference I used had the water looking quite green so thus that's what I did. I would dab the color around only filling in the gaps with more dabs where I felt necessary. I also attempted to get some shading in loosely matching where I could. Next, I made the treeline at the top of the cliff.
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Next I made the walls of the cliff and the waterfalls. Because the scenery comes from a video game, there isn't much realism. I attempted to capture it by making the main waterfall "jagged" like the reference and the smaller ones not fading. I also added shading, which is both familiar and foreign to me because I had never done it to such a degree as I had here. Although the way I did was not particularly well done, It is a major improvement to what I've done in the past, especially my older paintings.
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I added more details and filled in cracks. adding more shading happened however I was starting to lose much of my drive while painting and with my schedule not affording me much time to work on it I pushed on much to my detriment. I started to lose sight of how the baroque style was made. And then the consequences of making the thing freehanded reared around. I was conflicted on whether to make a sky and decided not to because I was tired of making them from my drawing despite this being less tedious than that. I was also trying to finish it quickly. I just tried to fill it in. I also tried to add minor details despite me claiming it to be "done". The photo brightened the painting bringing a slew of imperfections to light and I would like to fix them.
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Critique/reflection: I am both happy and dissatisfied with how it turned out, more so dissatisfied than happy. Despite multiple improvements to my older works and techniques, This is still riddled with flaws and terrible choices. It barely feels as if I used the baroque style of painting. I would be embarrassed to display this in its current state. Despite this I cannot undermine the slightly higher level of detail that went into this than my previous paintings from this year. As much as I learn and grow I feel as if I don't retain it and don't apply it which is something I struggle with what feels like quite often. (Water Lilies by Claude Monet pictured on right)
Compare/Contrast : Compare: both are baroque style impressionist landscape paintings that have a large focus on a pool of water and surrounding vegetation. Both are bright and don't carry much meaning at first glance.
Contrast : My work is done with acrylic paint as opposed to oil paint. The inspiration captures the baroque style of painting as to mine which doesn't do it well (if at all.) The inspiration mainly focuses on the water and plants in the water while mine is split between the water and cliff face.
Contrast : My work is done with acrylic paint as opposed to oil paint. The inspiration captures the baroque style of painting as to mine which doesn't do it well (if at all.) The inspiration mainly focuses on the water and plants in the water while mine is split between the water and cliff face.
Conection to ACT1.) The cause and effect relationship between my artwork and the inspiration is the baroque style of painting. I wanted to capture the feeling my inspiration has in me by attempting to replicate the style to little success.
2.) The overall approach to mainly convey how vast water can be. This is done by the large quantity of paintings in the collection and the main painting being multiple pieces.
3.) The generalization is that Monet is trying to capture reality in a variety of lightings. This is seen by the variety of lighting in his paintings
4.) The central idea was to have the pieces in the series supply “the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank” - Monet.
5.) The inference I made is that monet is fascinated by the way lighting affects the world as shown earlier.
2.) The overall approach to mainly convey how vast water can be. This is done by the large quantity of paintings in the collection and the main painting being multiple pieces.
3.) The generalization is that Monet is trying to capture reality in a variety of lightings. This is seen by the variety of lighting in his paintings
4.) The central idea was to have the pieces in the series supply “the illusion of an endless whole, of water without horizon or bank” - Monet.
5.) The inference I made is that monet is fascinated by the way lighting affects the world as shown earlier.
Citations :
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850htrbsp17/?p=191#:~:text=Water%20Lilies%20is%20one%20of,%2C%20according%20to%20Monet%2C%20himself.
https://www.claude-monet.com/#:~:text=Along%20with%20the%20other%20Impressionists,nature%20of%20light%20and%20color.
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850htrbsp17/?p=191#:~:text=Water%20Lilies%20is%20one%20of,%2C%20according%20to%20Monet%2C%20himself.
https://www.claude-monet.com/#:~:text=Along%20with%20the%20other%20Impressionists,nature%20of%20light%20and%20color.