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
