Cara de Nopal
Digital Illustration
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Exhibition Text:
Mi País Querido is an illustration inspired by César A. Mártinez's Dando vida and Frida Kahlo's Roots. The piece was made with the intention to reflect on my own roots and cultures. There's a saying in Mexico that when one looks really mexican, "tienen cara de nopal," or, they have the face of a cactus. This famous saying is what inspired me to further understand it's meaning. My roots will always remain with me, even after death. It's in the way I was raised and in who I am. I want my viewers to take pride in their culture.
Mi País Querido is an illustration inspired by César A. Mártinez's Dando vida and Frida Kahlo's Roots. The piece was made with the intention to reflect on my own roots and cultures. There's a saying in Mexico that when one looks really mexican, "tienen cara de nopal," or, they have the face of a cactus. This famous saying is what inspired me to further understand it's meaning. My roots will always remain with me, even after death. It's in the way I was raised and in who I am. I want my viewers to take pride in their culture.
PLANNING
Artistic Inspiration
César A. Mártinez
Dando vida / Giving Life 1999 |
Rob Barnes' Kitchen Garden inspired me to incorporate his style into one of my own artworks. His artwork follows simple themes, such as light on water, or shadows in the landscape. His lino cuts are hand-printed on an Albion press. As Barnes puts it, "I look out across the marshes in one direction and across open fields in the other. There are... deer and hares in winter chasing across the fields opposite. As spring approaches, there are times when I could almost sell tickets for the display of hares chasing and competing. There can be as many as ten in the field and they can be surprisingly large. I see them as silhouettes against the light and they never stay still for long." Barnes is heavily inspired by fields and large open spaces. Barnes' Kitchen Garden reminded me of the Mexican laborers in working in fields and I wanted to incorporate that into my illustration. Frida Kahlo's Roots painting contains lots of vivid and symbolic information. Roots depicts Kahlo reclining in an orange dress with vines growing out of her curvy body into the ground, widely seen to signify the importance of the concept of fertility in human life cycle. However, based off the title, I interpreted the painting as Kahlo being physically connected to her roots, or culture. I liked that concept very much and based my illustration off of that.
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Frida Kahlo
Raíces/Roots Oil on Metal 1943 Private Collection 30.5 x 49.9 cm Rob Barnes
Kitchen Garden 445mm x330mm Linocut |
Lastly, César A. Mártinez's Dando vida, or Giving Life, was a cool piece I discovered online while I was doing my research on Frida Kahlo. His painting had the same idea I was going for. The roots can be seen growing from the skeleton and reaching out to the sky. The background seems to be an open field, done in a similar fashion to Barnes. However, not much could be found about Mártinez or his piece. Either way, I took the risk and considered him to be another inspiration for my piece.
Planning Sketches
The first picture depicts all of my sketch ideas and the bottom 3 pictures are close ups. My final illustration idea can be seen in the first sketch idea. The second sketch idea I came up with was inspired by South-Korean tattoo artist, Pita KKM, who redraws classical art pieces in the traditional Korean art style. This encouraged me to replicate his ideas but in the style of traditional Mexican folk art. I was interested in making my own version of Vincent van Gogh's painting, Sun Flowers. I envisioned me version of the painting as having geometric shapes and vibrant colors. I also wanted to replace the sun flowers with a more traditional Mexican flower, such as the Alcatraz flower. For my third idea, I was inspired by the image of Sun Maid Raisins that featured a pretty woman holding a basket of grapes. It made me reflect on who actually pick fruit in fields, and logically, immigrant workers came to mind. Had I gone with this idea, the purpose would be more towards raising awareness towards the hard work of Hispanic immigrants whom are viewed negatively in the U.S. The 4th sketch idea was to depict Mexico's landscape near the U.S. border, but in Derain's art style, filled with vibrant colors.
Experimentation
For experimentation, I had to play around with the sizes for my illustration. I wanted a shape in between a rectangle and a square, in order to fit everything in. I also experimented with various brush settings in order to do shading and add depth to solid colors. I had first used a water brush to apply the shading, but the colors would continue to come out dark, despite my light brush strokes and adjusted settings. When I tried a regular brush, the shading become to rigid and not smooth enough. I opted to use an airbrush. It provided a much lighter distribution of color. Shading in the hair was done with a water brush because the smoothing seemed more natural for a hair texture. I used this same technique for sunset in the background. However, lines were evident whenever I switched colors. To correct this, I used a blur brush to fade out those line and create a smooth color gradient. I found myself to be picky when it came to the colors of the sky. I used sky references of various times of day in order to find something I liked. I wanted to incorporate stars in the sky, much like Mártinez did, but I also wanted to include more color in my piece. A dark sky would mean less light in my piece, therefore creating dull colors. In the end I chose a sunset that would still provide a little bit of the night sky. Another thing I needed to reference and learn more about was how to go about drawing mountains in the distance. I didn't my mountains to be your typical black triangles in the distance. One cool thing I found out was that the further away a mountain is, the lighter it becomes in color.
PROCESS
- I worked on sketching out myself, using various colors of line work. The colors helped me divide the whole sketch into smaller portions that contribute to make a full and complete rough draft.
- Once I was satisfied with my sketch, I colored the outline with colors that would contrast against the colors I would use to color the skin and hair, and placed the sketch on a separate layer. This layer would be my overall piece. I started sketching in the horizon line and the path leading towards a mountain range.
- I set up the base color on the skin, and made any color adjustments on the outline, in order to ensure that both colors would not blend into each other, but rather compliment each other nicely.
- I colored in the hair brown and used a water brush setting to blend the brown into a harsh blonde. I colored in the eyebrows using the same color as the hair.
- Next, I created the background. The sky was done using a water brush. Due to the harsh lines created, I used a blur tool to erase those lines. I then colored in the field in a goldish-yellow color and colored the path a peach color.
- I drew in the mountains in the distance in black. As the mountains got pushed further back, I lightened the hue of the color black. Using a starry brush setting, I proceeded to add stars in the dark purplish part of the sky.
- I realized that the way I was going about to create the dry fields in the background was going wrong, so I opted to color the whole field in the goldish-yellow color. I then began adding depth and shadows to the girl's white shirt, using a light pastel blue.
- I created a flowery design on the shirt using hues of blue, purple, and green. I then drew individual lines randomly throughout the background in order to give it the appearance of a block print, or a linocut.
- I colored in the path leading to the mountain range once again, and continued adding lines and drawing grass blades and indents in the path.
- Using a Japanese brush pen setting for it's rough edges, I colored in the cacti in various shades of green. I did not blend the colors smoothly like in the background, in order to create a more "rough" look. This rough look would give my illustration more block-print characteristics.
- Lastly, I added more lines in the field and drew in flowers and vines using the color black. This was drawn as inspiration and as final touches. The inspiration came from Rob Barnes' piece, Kitchen Garden.
REFLECTION
Meaning
Frida Kahlo's Roots painting contains lots of vivid and symbolic information. Roots depicted Kahlo reclining in an orange dress with vines growing out of her curvy body into the ground, widely seen to signify the importance of the concept of fertility in human life cycle. However, based off the title, I interpreted the painting as Kahlo being physically connected to her roots, or culture. I liked that concept very much and based my illustration off of that. I wanted express my pride in my heritage and roots in my illustration.
Compare & Contrast
SIMILARITIES:
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DIFFERENCES:
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ACT RESPONSES
rClearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork
Rob Barnes' Kitchen Garden inspired me to incorporate his style into one of my own artworks. Barnes is heavily inspired by fields and large open spaces. His lino cut, Kitchen Garden reminded me of the Mexican laborers in working in fields and I wanted to incorporate that into my illustration. Roots by Frida Kahlo depicts herself reclining in an orange dress with vines growing out of her curvy body into the ground, widely seen to signify the importance of the concept of fertility in human life cycle. However, based off of the title, I interpreted the painting as Kahlo being physically connected to her roots, or culture. I liked that concept very much and based my illustration off of that. The work of Mártinez had a similar meaning to Kahlo's Roots painting. I wanted to incorporate his block-print like style into my illustration. I thought it fit well with the Mexican culture, since Mexicans like to get hands on when it comes to arts and crafts. A block-print art style would make any digital illustration appear more hand-made and personal.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors from the multiple sources I used were mainly informative and did not go into much detail about emotions in the pieces, but rather analyze the techniques used and explained any symbols/objects that held a deeper meaning that contributed to the overall message of the artwork. The website I found for Rob Barnes was done by himself. While I tried hard, to get an understanding of how he viewed his inspirations and on his techniques, it seemed to me he was most happy to inform people more about his reconstructed Albion press. What a bummer...
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While I was researching my inspiration, I further realized that many people sometimes take shame in their culture. I more easily noticed it in Asian people. Asian people are also a minority and get treated badly. There are so many jokes about them in the media. It's no wonder why many Asian kids might find themselves being ashamed of their culture. I remembered seeing a video a long time ago, about a Mexican boy who was so ashamed of his ethnicity, that he always introduced himself as Spanish, just because they were viewed in a more positive way.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The theme around my inspirational research was on the importance of remembering where you came from and your culture. I think that when an individual knows their roots, they can begin to feel a sense of identity that gives them strength to go on throughout life, which is never an easy thing. It helps one feel more grounded and helps them have a feeling of meaning.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Rob Barnes' Kitchen Garden inspired me to incorporate his style into one of my own artworks. Barnes is heavily inspired by fields and large open spaces. His lino cut, Kitchen Garden reminded me of the Mexican laborers in working in fields and I wanted to incorporate that into my illustration. Roots by Frida Kahlo depicts herself reclining in an orange dress with vines growing out of her curvy body into the ground, widely seen to signify the importance of the concept of fertility in human life cycle. However, based off of the title, I interpreted the painting as Kahlo being physically connected to her roots, or culture. I liked that concept very much and based my illustration off of that. The work of Mártinez had a similar meaning to Kahlo's Roots painting. I wanted to incorporate his block-print like style into my illustration. I thought it fit well with the Mexican culture, since Mexicans like to get hands on when it comes to arts and crafts. A block-print art style would make any digital illustration appear more hand-made and personal.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors from the multiple sources I used were mainly informative and did not go into much detail about emotions in the pieces, but rather analyze the techniques used and explained any symbols/objects that held a deeper meaning that contributed to the overall message of the artwork. The website I found for Rob Barnes was done by himself. While I tried hard, to get an understanding of how he viewed his inspirations and on his techniques, it seemed to me he was most happy to inform people more about his reconstructed Albion press. What a bummer...
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While I was researching my inspiration, I further realized that many people sometimes take shame in their culture. I more easily noticed it in Asian people. Asian people are also a minority and get treated badly. There are so many jokes about them in the media. It's no wonder why many Asian kids might find themselves being ashamed of their culture. I remembered seeing a video a long time ago, about a Mexican boy who was so ashamed of his ethnicity, that he always introduced himself as Spanish, just because they were viewed in a more positive way.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The theme around my inspirational research was on the importance of remembering where you came from and your culture. I think that when an individual knows their roots, they can begin to feel a sense of identity that gives them strength to go on throughout life, which is never an easy thing. It helps one feel more grounded and helps them have a feeling of meaning.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
SOURCES:
- http://www.bournesidegallery.com/rob-barnes/4566021933
- http://www.robbarnesart.co.uk/linocuts.htm
- http://totallyhistory.com/roots/