Title: Eyes on youMedium: Digital Illustration on CLIP STUDIO PAINT Completed: November 29, 2022 Exhibition Text: Eyes on You represents the idea of feeling as though someone is constantly watching your every move making you feel scared and unsafe, however this is all in your head. Relating to experiences anxiety and the common occurrences with feeling as if someone is watching me and telling me things I don't want to hear.
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Inspiration:
1st Inspiration: Remedios Varo
Remedios Varo is a Spanish-Mexican painter who specializes in oil painting, her style being very stylized and surrealistic. Her early life as a painter consisted of fleeing and moving until she set foot in Mexico where her career as an artist skyrocketed. This particular piece is called Armonia (Harmony). It is said to symbolize the unconscious mind of an artist as they create art
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Harmony by Remedios Varo 1956
Insomnia by Remedios Varo
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For Insomnia I was greatly inspired by the colors. The olive greens against the dark browns work really well in emphasizing the meaning of the piece. Insomnia is as the name suggests, about insomnia. This particular piece was a commission given to Remedios, to produce a illustration to promote sleeping pills for a drug company. The eyes are meant to represent the visions those with insomnia see as they stare at the dark. Overall the piece is meant to create discomfort among the viewers, with the eyes, the fark hallway, and just the general composition of it.
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Planning:
My first sketches had the same character and idea as I really liked the whole concept of it. Starting off with the first sketch, which was my initial thought, a girl and eyes all around her. For my second sketch, Instead here I elevated my original thought. Originally I was going to go with my first sketch however I wanted to experiment with not only doing a background and scenery but a story. While doing this sketch I kept Remedios Varo’s paintings in mind as all her paintings depict scenarios and stories that although are not straightforward in their meaning, they are very interesting to decipher.
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My third idea was quite different to the others. I was fascinated by the idea of weeping angels, and felt I could tie that in perfectly with my meaning and the my ideas. Weeping angels tend to move when someone is looking away from them, keeping that in mind, I made a sketch with my interpretation of this idea. In which a girl is seen walking around a dark place with statues all over her, while she walks, the statues are her point of sight are un-mobile and covering their faces ( a common attribute with weeping angels), while the ones behind her begging creeping up on her. I also wanted the drawing to take the form of a flash image, therefore the coloring will be full of extreme lighting and very dark shadows. Weeping angels are known to move when the person present in the room is not watching them, I thought that would be a fun idea to work with. I also figured I could make the statues represent the girl in the picture, as notably, they all look like her. I used this as a metaphor to represent the idea of feeling as though someone is watching you, and that everyone is silently talking behind your back, but in the end it's just you bringing these feelings upon yourself.
Process:
I began my illustration by importing a picture of my sketch to my computer. I then opened the file on CLIP STUDIO PAINT and adjusted it to size. From there I traced the sketch. Once I had my sketch and idea set, I began tracing my sketch, following the same process for the original idea. While following the sketch, a lot of the proportions were off, as well as the facial expressions on the statues. While the creatures in Remedios piece, Harmony, have soft features and overall look harmless, I wanted the creatures in my piece to look angry and terrifying.
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Once I was done with the sketch, I went over that sketch and made a more refined line work. This was not a necessary thing to do but the sketch was very messy therefore, felt this would make things more easy when it came to coloring it. I then took a light gray and outlined the character since she will be lit compared the the statues in the back, which I outlined with a darker gray.
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Once the gray colors were set in place, I began the rendering process, starting off first with the main character. I started this process by figuring out my color palette, in which I went for browns, reds and greens for the skin. I first began by adding my base color, a light brown, and then I began adding a bit of shading/blush on the nose and cheeks, then I added shadows where I felt were needed. During this process, I kept adjusting the colors and looking of references of people, although I wanted it to be stylize like Remedios Varo's pieces, I also wanted the proportions to be correct.
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I continued coloring in the skin, focusing on using mostly browns. During the coloring of this character, I didn't focus much on the shadows and overall lighting as I felt I could fix this later on when I add the lighting with overlay. Even so, I made sure to make a lot of the shading harsh, as I didn't want it to get lost in all of the editing once I was done with the piece. Focusing on the facial expression of the character, I wanted her to look worried, but not exactly terrified.
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Once I was done with the character, I began coloring in the statues. This was probably the most time consuming part of the piece. It was during this part that I decided to change the look of the statues. While coloring them in, I thought it would be a good idea if the weeping angels looked exactly like the character. While shading it, I made sure to make the facial expressions very prominent, as I wanted them to visibly look very angry. I used only grays for this process, however I do wish I had used more a of a very muted brown color since the statues look a bit flat looking? It didn't bother me too much though, since I ended up fixing it with editing later on.
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After this I began brainstorming the lighting of the piece. Since the character would be holding a glowing object, I need to show the way the lighting shines on the objects around it. This process was rather difficult as I had no recollection of how the light source works. I ended up going through multiple different reference pictures until I found one similar to my drawing, pose wise, and with lighting that would work. I played around with the colors of the lighting, from a warm orange, to a bright purple. At the end I went for an orange/yellow glow. I added a bit of lighting on the clothing, fixed the coloring and was done with the piece. I also went ahead and made the statues a green color, I was going to make them more of a brown, but loved the way the green looked, it also reminded me of the colors used in both Insomnia, the harsh greens and Harmony by Remedios Varo with the light blue walls.
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Experimentation:
My experimentation was mostly in regards to the lighting of the whole piece. Taking into account Remedios Varo artworks, I noticed lighting plays a huge role in portraying the overall mood of the piece. I went back to the fort with an overall color of blue, purple and green. Purple and blue gave the piece a softer look, and made the colors less harsh, while the green made the piece feel more mysterious, and it reminded me of Insomnia by Remedios which is why I ultimately chose that one.
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Another difficult lighting choice was the flashlight. I went through many references in order to see how the lighting of the flashlight would fall on the objects around it. I went through a lot of trial and error during this part, adding yellow lighting where I felt was needed, and erasing where I felt there was too much.
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Compare and Contrast:
Eyes on you
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Harmony by Remedios Varo
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Both my piece and Harmony by Remedios Varo uses statue like creatures to show the meaning of the piece. Unlike my piece however, Harmony has kind and soft looking creatures, visible in the way they are drawn, as they are done with softer colors and their facial expressions are almost to none. While my piece have creatures that are showing harsh reactions and have strong facial expressions, and are visibly angry.
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Eyes on you
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Insomnia by Remedios Varo
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Both my piece and Insomnia have very harsh lighting and shadows. However, my piece is a lot more darker in color compared to Remedios Varo's piece. Insomnia although a dark piece, has a lot of light colors, as her piece shows a very illuminated room/hallway. The lighting for my pieces only goes to one direction, which is downwards, making every subject around it darker in comparison.
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Reflection:
Digital art is a medium I enjoy greatly, however I tend to draw fan-art and have never really tried making a fully original piece with characters, meanings and so on, therefore this piece was a bit difficult in that sense. I am happy with the way the piece looked in the end, coming out exactly as I imagined it to be. One of the things I mostly liked in the piece was`the overall composition of it, you can tell that the main character is clustered among the statues, not noticing the ones moving beside her, adding this sort of eerie feeling wondering what would happen next. One thing I would fix is the proportions, more so the hands, I feel as though on a technical level, I lacked on the the way the hands are positioned as well as the overall coloring of them. Another thing I liked about the piece was the lighting, I feel that without it, the piece would fall flat, but it works well in elevating the piece and am glad I added it. In the end, I think this piece works well in showing some of my strengths.
Connections to ACT:
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Remedios Varo uses surrealism and various metaphoric components to create even more meaning to her pieces. Nothing is added at random, and each can be analyzed and or interpreted into meaning to something she experienced in her lifetime.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Remedios Varo has a specific piece called Insomnia that depicts anxiety in the form of eyes in a dark room. Although both my piece and Remedio’s piece are similar in what they want to convey, are different in their approach, as Insomnia was made as an advertisement for sleeping pills.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While researching my inspiration, I got a little distracted as I wondered why eyes are seen as sometimes scary in art. While showing a friend my sketches for this project, she asked me why eyes were something so prominent in my pieces, and why they were always negative things. I was able to find that the position of eyes in art can really affect how the viewer sees the piece. An article, The Science of Creepy Paintings shows that when the eyes are drawn in the center and staring forward, the viewer believes the painting is staring at them wherever they go, creating an eerie feeling.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea revolves around my fear of eyes, not sure how to word it without it sounding silly. I felt as though my depiction of eyes in art as eerie things relates solely to my anxiety, as I sometimes hallucinate that a whole room of people is watching me, and it takes me time to figure out it's all in my head. Eyes in general show a lot of emotion, going off on this, I wanted to see what other people thought about eyes in art.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Prior to reading my research on eyes in paintings, I really believed eyes being a disturbing thing was just a me thing, however while reading The Science of Creepy Paintings I was able to see a whole different meaning and learn about something that never crossed my mind when doing art.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
Remedios Varo uses surrealism and various metaphoric components to create even more meaning to her pieces. Nothing is added at random, and each can be analyzed and or interpreted into meaning to something she experienced in her lifetime.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Remedios Varo has a specific piece called Insomnia that depicts anxiety in the form of eyes in a dark room. Although both my piece and Remedio’s piece are similar in what they want to convey, are different in their approach, as Insomnia was made as an advertisement for sleeping pills.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While researching my inspiration, I got a little distracted as I wondered why eyes are seen as sometimes scary in art. While showing a friend my sketches for this project, she asked me why eyes were something so prominent in my pieces, and why they were always negative things. I was able to find that the position of eyes in art can really affect how the viewer sees the piece. An article, The Science of Creepy Paintings shows that when the eyes are drawn in the center and staring forward, the viewer believes the painting is staring at them wherever they go, creating an eerie feeling.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea revolves around my fear of eyes, not sure how to word it without it sounding silly. I felt as though my depiction of eyes in art as eerie things relates solely to my anxiety, as I sometimes hallucinate that a whole room of people is watching me, and it takes me time to figure out it's all in my head. Eyes in general show a lot of emotion, going off on this, I wanted to see what other people thought about eyes in art.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Prior to reading my research on eyes in paintings, I really believed eyes being a disturbing thing was just a me thing, however while reading The Science of Creepy Paintings I was able to see a whole different meaning and learn about something that never crossed my mind when doing art.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
- LAUTER, ESTELLA. “THE CREATIVE WOMAN AND THE FEMALE QUEST: The Paintings of Remedios Varo.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 63, no. 2, 1980, pp. 113–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41178147. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
- https://lyricskpop.net/lyrics/txt-eternally-english-translation/
- https://maria-cristina.medium.com/great-paintings-insomnia-by-remedios-varo-4f623515e5c
- https://medium.com/illuminations-mirror/the-science-of-creepy-paintings-6392e4b83822