Contextual Studies Essay - 2

Tutor: Bill
Stu- 188086

In this following essay, I am going to compare and contrast two pieces of work, one from an artist who has personally inspired and influenced me as an artist, the great fantasy artist Boris Vallejo. The other piece of work is from my own portfolio that reflects some elements of Vallejo’s work. The pieces I have selected are an Oil painting from 1997 named ‘Mistress of the Storm’ (Shown Right) by Boris Vallejo, and an Acrylic painting from 2010 named ‘Jasmine’ (Bottom)by painted by myself.


The painting ‘Mistress of the Storm’ depicts a very goddess like figure. A perfectly sculpted woman is levitating in an angry and stormy sky who has thunder like electricity emanating from her fingertips, as if she is able to control the element of Thunder. Reflecting on the woman’s face, she has quite an angry and powerful look upon her. I feel her expression compliments the background very nicely, and also, her outfit she is wearing has thunder like shapes within it, which ties in rather nicely with this piece. By using colours mainly from the ‘Warm’ pallet, such as reds and yellows, which makes up a good 80% of the painting. I believe this enhances the painting, and makes the womanly figure look more dominating and powerful.


Comparing to Vallejo’s piece is a painting by myself named ‘Jasmine’. It is a painting of one of my fellow art students which she requested me to paint. Her main feature I like are her eyes, which I have tried to capture as best I can. The colour of the background I chose very carefully to compliment her stunning eyes and further increase thier attractiveness. This was done by taking colours used to paint her eyes and abstracting them slightly, so they’re not the same colour, by still relating to the original tone. I also made tone of her hair and skin lighter, which effectively draws you into her eyes much more than it would of done normally with her hair and eyes being a darker tone.


On comparison, both my piece and Vallejo’s share enhancing elements within them. In my piece, I chose to change the tones of painting so it would accentuate certain features of the figure such as the eyes. In Vallejo’s piece, he uses complimentary colours that tie into the theme of the piece and also reflect on expression of the woman within the painting. Both my piece and Vallejo’s work originate from a secondary source, where both have been worked from photography resources. Vallejo keeps a very close relationship and friendship with all the models he uses, and often re-uses them in other work. I too can relate the importance of keeping a good relationship between the models in which I use for my work. I feel Vallejo’s piece is much more professional looking than my piece. His painting technique is also much more technical, and as a result, his painting is much more stunning. This though only makes me strive to become better, progress further, and eventually someday, become an artist as great as Boris Valejo                                            

Contextual Studies - Visual Analysis

Alexander Osborne
 Stu- 188086
 Tutor- Bill


For  the  following Visual  Analysis  essay,  I  have  chosen  the  two  following  pieces  of  artwork,  Helen  Frankenthaler’s  Untitled  piece from  1982  and  Georgia  O’Keefe’s  Red  Hills  1927  (Red  Hills  with Sun). I  am  going  to  compare,  relate  and  analyse  both  pieces  in  detail.


The  first  piece  is  by  the  female Wisconsin  born  Abstract  Expressionist  artist,  Georgia  O’Keefe,  named  Red  Hills.  It  depicts  the  Autumn  landscape  of  Lake  George  located  in  the  Adirondack  Mountains  of  New  York.  The  Oil  painting  I  feel  is  a  very  vibrant   and  warm  piece,  which  I  believe  has  been  achieved  through  the  use  of  burning  and  earthly  tones  that  belong  to  the  ‘Warm’  pallet  of  colours ( Yellows,  Greenish  Yellows,  Oranges,  Browns  and  Reds ).  On  some  sections  of  the  painting,  she  has  used  an  effective  wash  technique,  the  main  example of  this  would  be  the  sky  and  sun.  This  technique  was  carried  out  by  watering  down  the  Oil  paints  using  a  chemical  thinner,  which  is  then  applied  to  a  damp  canvas.
I  rather  enjoy  the  contrast  between  the  solid  red  colour  of  the mountain  plain,  up  against  the  lighter  and  more  translucent  colours  of  the  sky.  I  feel  it  gives  the  painting  real  depth  and  texture,  that  would otherwise  been  lost  by  using  just  one  painting  technique.  It’s  essential  when  using  Oil  paints  on  canvas,  that  the  canvas  is  primed  correctly,  otherwise  the  chemicals  within  the  Oil  paints  will  eventually  corrode  and  rot  canvas  material.


The  second  piece  is  by  another  female  artist,  the  New  York  born  Helen  Frankenthaler.  Helen  was  a  pioneer  of  the  colour  field  movement,  which  is  associated  with  the  second - generation  abstract  expressionists.  She  primarily  draws  from  landscapes  for  her  inspiration,  this  Untitled  landscape  piece reflects  her  inspiration  in  a  very  abstract  way.   I  feel  the  piece  has  a  rather  cool  and  fresh  feel  to  it.  With  the  use  cold  blue  colours  and  tranquil  tones  that  considerably  contribute  to  the  cool  feel  of  the  piece,  combined  with  her  ‘field’  painting  style  plus  her  mastered  ‘soak- stain’  painting  technique,  the  resulting  look  to  the  painting  is  very  refreshing  to  the  eye  and  visually  has  a  very  silky  smooth texture  to  it.
She  uses  thinned  down  Acrylic  paint  that  is  applied  onto  a  damp  un - primed  canvas  to  create  her  soak - stain  paintings.  By  restricting  the  application  of  water  to  certain  parts  of  the  canvas ( for  example  in  this  piece,  the  upper  white  section  of  the  painting )  she  was  able  to  control  the  areas  in  which  the  liquefied   Acrylic  will  bleed  into.  Applying  more  or  less  water  and  Acrylic  to  certain  sections  of  the  painting  controlled  the  overall  texture  of  this  piece.


In  comparison,  both  pieces  are  paintings,  but  on  opposite  sides  of  the  scale.  Georgia O’Keefe’s  Red  Hills  is  a  very  warm  painting  which  uses  colours  from  the  ‘Warm’  pallet  of  colours,  and  Helen  Frankenthaler’s  uses  colours  from  the ’Cold’  pallet. Both  paintings  fall  into  Abstract,  but  Helen’s  painting  is  much  more  expressionistic  compared  to  more  traditionally  painted  modernist  painting  of  O’Keefe.  Because  of  this,  the  viewer  of  O’Keefe’s  Red Hills,  needs  not  look  into  the  painting  as  hard,   but  may  need  to  look  at  Helen’s  piece  with  a  bit  more  depth  to  discover  its  true  meaning.  In  the  1960’s,  O’Keefe  switched  to  using  Acrylics,  which  she  used  in  this  painting,  whilst  Helen  stuck  to  using  the  more  traditional  and  more  established  at  the  time  Oil  paints.  Even  though  they  are  painted  using  different  mediums  and  colours,  they  do  share  an  element  of  texture. The  washed  effect  on  the  sky  in  O’Keefe’s  piece,  I  feel  can  also  be  put  into  the  same  tribute  as  the  stained  effect  that  features  on  Helen’s  piece.


Overall,  it  would  be  hard  to  chose  between  the  piece  I  like  the  most, it  would  probably  be  Red  Hills  due  to  its  simplistic  but  detailed  quality  compared  to  the  Untitled  pieces  which  is  more  cruder  but  still  at  the  same  time  is  also  simplistic.