Madison 7 March 2014 Design: Communication and Technology Period 5 Emotion Conveyed Through Art: Criterion A: Art therapy is becoming an increasingly well-known practice in the fields of medicine and psychology. Art therapy is a mixture between art and psychotherapy. With traumatic events, whether it be extreme illness or a mental disorder, art therapy is used to help a patient express their stress and learn more about themselves (Cherry, n.d.). Art therapy is sometimes aimed children especially, and the exact process depends on the therapist themselves, the age of the child, and the problem being treated ("Art Therapy for Children," n.d.). With my interest in pursuing a career in medicine and my love of art as well as my interest in helping children, I wanted to look into this idea of art therapy and create it into a project for me to do to eventually learn more about this through experience. So, making a compilation of different paintings, each showcasing a different emotion, I can learn more about what connection art has to our minds and learn more about how art and making art evokes an emotional response. To plainly state, the purpose for this product is to provide me with a learning experience that I can look back on as both an improvement in art, and a lesson in human sociology, the latter being important when working as a medical professional. To start, I began with researching for existing art that conveys emotion, and then decided to really break each of these apart to see how the artist conveyed their feelings through their chosen medium. To begin with, I chose a classic piece of art to look at, Van Gogh's Starry Night. In this one piece, he covers many distinct emotions. The swirling in the sky shows great energy and passion, while the clusters of the stars show distinction, separation from others, and in a sense, individuality. The movement, apart from showing passion, matched with such a dark, cool color scheme really lead to a feeling of angst in this painting. All of these different aspects, the movement, the color palette, and the shapes presented all, depending on the person, show different messages, but anyone looking at this painting can see how much emotion Van Gogh poured into this piece, which really makes it shine. The second piece I looked at was created by Roy Lichtenstein, called Crying Girl. This painting's emotion the artist portrays is more obvious at first glance than
that of Starry Night. Instead of using color to portray the emotions, Roy Lichtenstein instead made an image of a woman crying, which we associate with sadness. Her upturned eyebrows and corners of her lips down-turned imply that instead of crying for happiness, she is crying in sadness. Also, the diverted eyes from the viewer adds a sense of mystery to the person looking at the image, wondering what the woman in the painting could be looking at, with such a look of fear. In this image, the color and style of the drawing play less of a role than in Starry Night as the use of a human image creates this mood in itself, the colors are simply a style of the artist which gives it a sense of unity with his other works, though the emotions they portray and the subjects in the images may differ greatly. The last painting I looked at was Francis Bacon's Study After Veláquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. This image shows intense emotion through the man's open mouth, giving the impression of screaming, though his other body image doesn't imply this. The vertical lines that the artist added that blur the colors and are dark in contrast to the man's purple clothing add movement to the image, adding intensity to the feelings of anger. This leaves the audience to wonder what or who this man could be yelling at, that made him so angry. Another part of this that could leave the reader thinking is the golden throne that this pope is sitting on. The golden throne gives the appearance of royalty and power, but his body language gives the appearance that though he is on this study throne built for a king, he, himself is not stable. This whole image is hauntingly dark and unstable, portraying the anger of the pope to the audience. From looking at these pieces, I learned more about what conveys emotion in art. Color is a very potent indicator of emotion, though it is not necessarily always used. Dark, cool colors tend to indicate sadness, while warmer colors indicate happiness, or when used sparingly can indicate intensity. Movement is also hugely important in portraying emotion, it can intensify any emotion, whether happy or sad. Also, using a human in the painting helps put across the intended emotion, because humans naturally interpret the person's emotional state subconsciously. Though, at first glance all of these paintings look quite different, they actually all hold a deeper connection, the emotion they each portray. After looking at a few pieces individually, I looked more into what is required to work in this field, to work with people on using art in a therapeutic way as well as the general environment of this field. In my search, I found an organization known as the NCCATA, the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies Association. This group, as suggested by its name is an alliance between several different groups having to do with all different kinds of creative art therapies. On the website they simply stated that depending on the job and company a person
is working with, the professional standards and requisite qualifications differ. In general, art therapy, according to this website takes place in an array of locations, from schools and wellness centers to drug and alcohol centers and community mental health centers. Also on this website, they give examples of what may be treated by these professionals, such as in conjunction with the medical care for the treatment of breast cancer, school violence prevention and intervention, and a campaign against suicide. From this, I learned how broad of a subject that art therapy really is. Art therapy goes much farther than making a painting, it can help people express their feelings through other things, such as drama or language. So, depending on the patient and their learning styles and their needs, a different expressive therapy professional can match them so that they can be put into an even more comfortable atmosphere so that people can express their feelings to their fullest (About NCCATA, 2014). References About NCCATA. (2014, January). Retrieved from NCCATA: http://www.nccata.org/ This website is made by an association that was founded in 1979, and is known for their alliance of many professional companies that helps connect together different human service professionals who use arts modalities for the purpose of helping others get through illnesses both physical and emotional. Artsology. (n.d.). Art and Emotion. Retrieved January, 2014, from Artsology website: http://www.artsology.com/artemotion.php This website focuses on art and their emotions, it has an archive of different art pieces, both professional and submitted by viewers that show emotions in art at its finest. This is from where I retrieved my images of both Crying Girl and Study After Veláquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Art therapy for children. (n.d.). Retrieved January, 2014, from http://www.arttherapyjournal.org/art-therapy-for-children.html A website dedicated only to art therapy and all about this subject, for those who are interested in this. Cherry, K. (n.d.). What is art therapy? Retrieved January, 2014, from About.com website: http://psychology.about.com/od/psychotherapy/f/art-therapy.htm About. com is a website well-known for giving the basics of information about any subject, and is known to be accurate in giving brief and basic background to subjects.
Gogh, V. (1889, June). Starry Night [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/van_gogh_-_starry_night_-_g oogle_art_project.jpg/1280px-van_gogh_-_starry_night_-_google_art_project.jpg This is just a digital image of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Criterion B: To create a successful product, I first need to create specifications from which to define what the terms of success are. Design Specification: Description: 3-5 Different Drawings This is so I can portray a range of emotions through my small collection of them. Also, more paintings will really give across my message that art therapy can help a person to tell so many different stories, through their different stages of healing as due to illness or trauma. At Least Two Emotions Intended Per Drawing One Focus Color to Set Mood 3+ Other Colors in Respect to the Main This helps add to the complexity of each piece, to make each one more interesting to the viewer. Human emotions are more than can simply defined in one word, many people experience emotions in pairs or in groups, so it is important that I pay respect to this. The entirety of the image should be based around one color, corresponding to the emotions intended, this also unifies the piece to make it look more put-together. Unity is very important to making a piece more attractive to view. As well as that sometimes too many colors can look cluttered and inexperienced, but I want to give off a more professional look, so this is important. These colors should be less pigmented as to correspond with the main color. This means that colors opposite of it on the color wheel would have much less pigmentation and concentration than that of colors next to it on the wheel. This is important to avoid too much contrast in the piece and make all the colors look true to shade within
the context of the image. These three other colors add variety to the piece to make it look more interesting and less monotone. 2+ Brushes Used Per Piece This adds more to how interesting the piece is. Different brushes, electronic or physical, provide different textures to the painting, which makes it capture the viewer's eye for longer. Also, different brushes are better for different techniques, so these should be used to perform these techniques in the best way possible. Tell a Story More than just portraying emotions, each painting should really have a story behind it. Having this 'story' helps aid in creating the art as well as teaching the viewer something. For the creation of this product the design ideas are based on what medium to eventually use. I have three options for this project for mediums. The first is to create the images entirely digitally, the second is to create the images entirely traditionally, and the third is to begin by sketching out ideas traditionally, then scan it into my computer and finish the painting digitally. The first design is that above. This would imply that all of the paintings would be done completely traditionally until they are scanned into the computer to be put online into my personal portfolio to be sent out to people to view via the internet. I would use traditional media like watercolor paints and a variety of paintbrushes as well as using canvases to put my paintings on. The second design seen above is where I would sketch the art digitally, with a pencil on white paper or in a sketchbook and would scan the image into my computer to use as a base for the painting and then import this into Photoshop to complete the painting with colors and textures digitally.
The last design idea is to create the entire image through digital means, via. Photoshop or another program on my computer making the canvas digitally. I chose to make my paintings first sketches traditionally and to finish them digitally. I feel like this gives me the most freedom with my project, I will be able to physically get my ideas out via paper, and will have all of the necessary materials I could ever want for finishing the painting. My paintings can totally depend on the feelings I have at the moment, and I decide at that moment to paint. My process requires a plan, and this drawing shows this, first I sketch the image traditionally, using a pencil, then I scan it into my computer, then I finish the painting digitally using Photoshop and do all final filters digitally as well. After this I can post this on my portfolio. To create a painting first through traditional means, then finish it digitally, I require several things. First I need plain white paper and a variety of different sketching pencils to create the basic sketch, then for transferring it to a computer, I need to use a scanner or a quality camera to upload it to my laptop. Then, once the image is on the computer, I need to use a painting/photo editing program such as Photoshop or SketchBookPro to finish the painting, as well as a drawing tablet to have more control over the cursor to create a better painting in a shorter amount of time with less stress on my wrist.
Criterion C: February, 3 hours total: On the first day, I will sketch out my plans for all of my paintings. This will be using pencils and plain paper to do this. After doing each sketch, making sure the lines are dark enough, scan the image into the computer. Dark lines can be achieved by using a few pens as well. At this time, since all of the ideas are fresh in your mind, you can also open these images in Photoshop and put down a quick color palate which will be used at a later time. February, 7+ hours total: On the second day, I will begin to lay out the colors. I will use the bucket tool to fill in the background with the base color, lowering the opacity to still be able to see the sketches below it. After this, I will begin to put in all of the other colors on top, starting in blocks and then working into more detail work. February, 2 hours total: At this point, I will be finishing the detailing, doing the final touches on each of the paintings. After this, put filters on the paintings to make them look their best. After doing this, import the images onto their own pages on the portfolio. Here are two photos from my process:
This shows me using my scans of the images to make my paintings. I used this for the bases of my paintings and then later on, make a sketch on the computer to follow. I start with blocking basic colors, then I went into detail in different sections of the painting at a time. Also, it can be seen how many layers I have at different points in my process, in the end, I create about ten folders holding different layers. I didn't take too many photos in my process, but these two show my process well. Final Project In the actual making of my project I didn't follow the plan exactly. I, instead of sketching all the images at the same time, did each one individually, because, in the end I felt that it was better to concentrate on each image individually instead of working on them in groups, this is to keep myself more focused on one and not blend the ideas to closely together. Also, it is more
exhausting to simply paint for three hours straight instead of alternating sketching and painting and uploading of images. With this alternating over the course of several weeks, I was able to be more focused when I was working on it and I was very productive and the ideas flowed to me more easily. Criterion D: After creating my product, I then needed to test whether it was successful in meeting my criteria or not. Below, I altered the chart I made back in criteria B and added a third column to it, this one being titled as testing, and it contains exactly as it says, it has my method of testing whether I am successful in each specification. Design Specification: Description: Testing: 3-5 Different Drawings This is so I can portray a range of emotions through my small collection of them. Also, more paintings will really give across my message that art therapy can help a person to tell so many different stories, through their different stages of healing as due to illness or trauma. View website, photo proof. At Least Two Emotions Intended Per Drawing One Focus Color to Set Mood This helps add to the complexity of each piece, to make each one more interesting to the viewer. Human emotions are more than can simply defined in one word, many people experience emotions in pairs or in groups, so it is important that I pay respect to this. The entirety of the image should be based around one color, corresponding to the emotions intended, this also unifies the piece to make it look more put-together. Unity is very important to making a piece more attractive to view. As well as that sometimes too many colors can look cluttered Can be seen in description of images. Can be seen, photo proof.
3+ Other Colors in Respect to the Main 2+ Brushes Used Per Piece Tell a Story and inexperienced, but I want to give off a more professional look, so this is important. These colors should be less pigmented as to correspond with the main color. This means that colors opposite of it on the color wheel would have much less pigmentation and concentration than that of colors next to it on the wheel. This is important to avoid too much contrast in the piece and make all the colors look true to shade within the context of the image. These three other colors add variety to the piece to make it look more interesting and less monotone. This adds more to how interesting the piece is. Different brushes, electronic or physical, provide different textures to the painting, which makes it capture the viewer's eye for longer. Also, different brushes are better for different techniques, so these should be used to perform these techniques in the best way possible. More than just portraying emotions, each painting should really have a story behind it. Having this 'story' helps aid in creating the art as well as teaching the viewer something. Can be seen, photo proof. Knowledge from process. Cannot be truly tested, but I was sure to do so. See description of photos. Now, I will go more in depth into each of these specifications and if I have met them or not. My first specification required me to have anywhere from three to five drawings. On the right shows my screencap I took of my portfolio showing all four drawings that I created. So, I did meet this criteria as it can be seen that I have four paintings, which is in the middle of the range that I set myself to have. This means that, according to the description of the specification, I have a range of images that show a range of emotions across them. These really show that, even though three of these paintings share a color scheme, they can tell different things, depending on how the colors are used.
This picture to the left shows the second criterion being met. The second specification requires that at least two emotions are intended to show in the drawing, to add to the complexity of each piece, as human emotion is complex in reality. This minimum of two emotions also makes the image much more interesting to the viewer The next criterion specifies that there is a color from which the painting is based. I know I met this from the start as for each canvas before I even went over the sketches, I used the bucket tool to put a basic color to help me start thinking about the mood of the painting and how to draw. Though I went over the original color so it cannot be seen here, a less concentrated form of it shows up in the image subtly, which gives the other colors something to blend around, and be compared to. The next specification is that there are at least three different colors in respect to the base color. From these two images it can be seen how many different colors were used, in the orb containing the girl, the reflections show at least five different hues, pinks, reds, greens, blues, and oranges. The second that really shows this is the second photo in the picture, where there are many shades of yellow, red, and orange as well as a solid black color for the shadows. These colors make the pictures more interesting, whether in a subtle way like on the top, or in an obvious way like on the bottom. The next specification is a little bit harder to show through photographic evidence, but to a degree it can be seen. I used at least two
brushes per painting, though it may not be extremely obvious. I used mainly two brushes, one watercolor brush, and one solid brush for finer lines. In this picture, this is more obvious, the watercolor brush is what I used in the background, and the shadow was made using the more solid brush which makes a solid line, for more definite strokes. The last specification is that each image must tell a story. I showed this through my little paragraph that I wrote for each painting, this painting shows a story of a girl, which is actually Elsa from Disney s Frozen, and it shows how trapped she feels with her powers. It shows how she has encased herself in her eternal winter, and she is alone in this world. When painting each image, I made a story in my mind and tried to paint using these feelings to show the image accurately. I could have made several improvements in my project. One, I could have made more paintings, to help show an even wider variety of emotions and this through art. The wider range is more effective in teaching the viewers about this. Also, I could have spent even more time on each piece. When doing this project, I had a limited amount of time, so I couldn t really spend a lot of time on each painting as I wish I could have done. If I had more time to simply work on this project, I would take the time to make several drafts of each painting to make sure each one is of the greatest quality that I can make it. Also, on each draft, I would work more on my line quality and be more confident in my lines while using more appropriate colors and working on these for the better. Even further, I could have made more diverse emotions being shown through these, I feel that, since I had such a small number of paintings, I should have diversified these few paintings the most that I could, and it s apparent that I didn t do so through the fact that the color scheme for three of these are almost identical with only one of the paintings not having a cool color for the base, and rather a warm color. These little things could have taken my products to the next level, making each painting more effective for the whole. Art therapy as a whole has a huge impact on society, it helps people to learn more about themselves and their emotions, as well as helping others understand their emotions, both positive and negative. This is a powerful tool that we have, as it helps to diagnose problems in a patient on more than just a physical level, a psychological level. My project itself is mainly helpful to me, rather than those around me. This project helped me to look at the career path of being an art therapist, as well as understanding how to improve my art in terms of putting
more than one emotion behind it, making my art more complex. But, others can benefit from this in how they can learn that even a student can create art showing their emotions (though mine were conjured up for diversity s sake), so they could consider doing this to learn more about themselves. In this way, my product didn t really have a direct connection to helping society or the environment, but rather an indirect connection, through the hope to inspire others.