Medium: Acrylic Paint on Canvas Completed: July 23, 2022 Exhibtion Text: During MIAD summer pre-college program we were assigned a project in which we were to replicate a master artists painting to the best of our abilities. I chose William Blake’s “Ancient of Days” due to it's intriguing look, prominent lines and colors.
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The Artist - William Blake
Ancient of Days by William Blake
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About William Blake's Ancient of Days
Theres many renditions of this particular piece, thirteen to br exact. All depicting Urizen. a god of William Blake's own mythology, even written a book for this character, "The Book of Urizen" consisting of many poems. It is said that he represent law and conventional wisdom, in the story it is said that he established a world of his own in which he was the ruler and the creator of its laws. The medium and the materials used for this particular piece were, ink, paper, chalks in oil and copper plate, using his experience in using watercolor to make this piece. It is also said his work was almost ignored, and not taken well by many. It wasn't until a biography was made for him where he grew a reputation. His work was able to influenced lots of poets, music, films. Etc. It is said his work was part of the Pre-Romanticism period. |
Process:
Day 1: For this day I was more focused on getting the sketch perfected before painting. I wasn’t sure how to start the sketcg initially. I was almost taken aback by the amount of lines and became overwhelmed. Perhaps it was the pressure of recreating such a intricate piece. Before beginning the sketch, the instructor recommended using grids therefore I made 8x10 inch squares. I began first by drawing the circle as it was the center point for everything else, then I drew the clouds and finally ended with drawing the man. I had to re-do the sketch about 2 times due to miscounts by my behalf which made the process very frustrating. At this point I began painting the background yellow as it is the color used the most. |
Day 2: A big jump in process here, after I placed down the yellow where needed. I went in and set the colors for the clouds, not focusing on details at all just placing the colors. Since I was using acrylic for this painting, I had to layer the colors a lot so if I wanted a very opaque look, I had to first put a layer without details and so on. For certain colors I had to do 2-3 coats. At the end I went in with black (ended up running out of paint). The background was very hard to do, in William Blake's artwork, he has a mixture of thin lines, lines blended in and thick lines. I probably redid that part of the paint 2 times due to the lines not looking....appealing? |
Day 3: Now it is the start for the hard part. The man in the painting have very accentuated muscles and I don’t normally draw full bodies let alone very muscular men so this was a learning process. I felt it was good to start off the muscles first by painting the dark shadows because from their I can build it up and blend easier. I made sure to get the colors as close as possible, perhaps not on point, but at least close enough. Based on his piece, he seems to use very light beige tones, a lot closer to being grey, therefore while mixing I used mostly yellow, and added small amount of blue and red, adding only white if I made to color to dark, and adding only black if I wanted a more muted color. |
I finished off the body by adding the black lineart around the whole body and where needed for shading. Once I was done with the body, it was time for the face and hair, one of the parts I was not anticipating at all. I taped the orginal piece on my painting to have it near. My process was basically the same as the others, lay down your primary colors, and layer them as you go. My base for the hair was a very light grey with blue and green added to it as I noticed in the original piece, there seemed to be very subtle hints of blue and green. Afterwards, I went in with a very thin brush to do the lineart, the most crucial part. I honestly could've used a black pencil, but I was in a time crunch and wasnt thinking clearly. The lines came out very shaky, but towards the end I cleaned them up with the leftover color that was left on my palette. |
Day 4: Final Day At this point everything was pretty much done. I had about 2 hours and 30 minutes to finalize everything. So I went in and fixed up the lineart, as well as adding more layers of paint to places that seemed bare. I also went in white a light grey/white to add highlights and lighting. I also added little speckles of yellow paint to the clouds, to have the same effect as William Blake's painting, in which we see yellow paint smeared on the cloud. I also went in wth a dry brush and with a light purple/blue I once again added very light strokes of the paint on the cloud to add texture. |
Pictures of my painting palettes consisting of lots of yellows and reds, different shades of skin tones and lots of mixing.
Critique:
Critque of the Man:
Similarities:
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Differences:
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Overall Painting/Background Focused Critique:
Similarities:
- Due to the grids, I was able to put each subject exactly where they have to be therefore that would be the first similarity I can find. I wouldnt say the composition is spot on, but its very similar. I was also working with a canvas smaller than William Blake, therefore had to crop less than a quarter of his piece for it to fit in frame.
- Due to having to modify his piece to fit my frame, I had to make the sharp objects hes holding onto a lot more smaller,
- Right away the colors I used are a lot more vivid and bright. Instead of reds I used a brighter magenta color. On the cloudes I used purples and blues and although William Blake does use these colors, they are as accentuated as mine. If I gone back with a light grey color to go on top of it. it would've been a lor closer. It also seems as though his black isnt as opaque as mine, its almost giving a water color effect. this is probably due to the difference in medium.
Reflection:
When I first started this painting, I was very scared it would be unrecognizable compared to the original, therefore I tried to get everything as exact as I could. I feel as though I was able to replicate it very well however, the only thing that falls off are the colors. Although I like the bright colors, when put side to side with the original, there is a drastic difference, however it somehow works due to the colors being deliberately the same in values. I’m overall satisfied with how it all came together, my favorite part being Urizen, it was the part of the painting I was dreading to start, however the process was relatively easy. It was challenging making sure the hands looked like hands and that muscles were to be proportional, but the whole blending process of colors was my favorite and easy part of the process. One thing I would fix would be the leg where the knee is down on the floor, I feel that specific leg is not cohesive with the other pieces due to the fact that the colors were not blending with each other, I also had trouble painting the muscles on that leg, overall it was challenging for me.
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?
Having the freedom to choose any master work really added a level of fun to this project. I wanted to choose something I don't usually do. I especially chose Ancient of Days by William Blake because I was instantly drawn to it when I saw it due to its colors and the textures. I wanted to convey the same feeling I felt when I first saw it as if I were to show this piece to someone else. However, I also wanted to make sure I could live up to the original even just a bit. My biggest fear is that it would come out looking nothing like its counterpart. Keeping that in mind, I made sure to follow the painting as closely as possible to get every detail.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
My overall approach was to do a painting different from my other projects. When I came across WIlliam Blake’s work, I knew I would be challenged due to the whole composition of it and the amount of lines present in the piece.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
WIlliam Blake’s whole universe about Urizen, the man in the painting, is a very interesting read. He was the embodiment of reason of law.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
I didn’t have a central idea to go off other than I wanted to do something different and striking to the eye. Ancient of Days stood out a lot because although it has very muted colors, the usage of black and lines adds a nice contrast.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While inspecting my inspiration, I was able to learn how the weight of lines can affect the piece. In Ancient of Days, the lines are not just one singular width they vary to add balance, they also however add texture to the piece and it all works well together.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
https://www.williamblake.org/ancient-of-days/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urizen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Urizen
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/William-Blake/
Having the freedom to choose any master work really added a level of fun to this project. I wanted to choose something I don't usually do. I especially chose Ancient of Days by William Blake because I was instantly drawn to it when I saw it due to its colors and the textures. I wanted to convey the same feeling I felt when I first saw it as if I were to show this piece to someone else. However, I also wanted to make sure I could live up to the original even just a bit. My biggest fear is that it would come out looking nothing like its counterpart. Keeping that in mind, I made sure to follow the painting as closely as possible to get every detail.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
My overall approach was to do a painting different from my other projects. When I came across WIlliam Blake’s work, I knew I would be challenged due to the whole composition of it and the amount of lines present in the piece.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
WIlliam Blake’s whole universe about Urizen, the man in the painting, is a very interesting read. He was the embodiment of reason of law.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
I didn’t have a central idea to go off other than I wanted to do something different and striking to the eye. Ancient of Days stood out a lot because although it has very muted colors, the usage of black and lines adds a nice contrast.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While inspecting my inspiration, I was able to learn how the weight of lines can affect the piece. In Ancient of Days, the lines are not just one singular width they vary to add balance, they also however add texture to the piece and it all works well together.
Citations (MLA FORMAT)
https://www.williamblake.org/ancient-of-days/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urizen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Urizen
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/William-Blake/