Emotion in Art - IB MYP5 E-portfolio (Piece 2)

 

Layout:

Artistic intention:

    This layout aims to show to the audience that there are many stereotypes against people who don’t show emotions openly. In this artwork the butterfly is sitting on a rock which isn’t somewhere where the butterfly usually sits, we see butterflies around flowers, fruits and other bright places. The rock represents a person that is being compared to stone because when people say "that person's made of rock" or "that's a stone cold person" they usually mean that they're emotionless and don’t care about anything, but this layout shows otherwise. The butterfly represents emotion in different colours and the overall artwork is a representation of how the colorful butterfly (emotions) not only come to flowers (people who show emotion) but can also come to rocks (a person who's good at hiding emotions). So if a butterfly can choose to sit on a rock, emotions can also be felt by “stone cold” people and they’re just better at locking them up.

Exploration:

1)     Rock

Working with clay:

    I created the rock from clay and planned on giving it a ceramic look later on. I decided to go ahead with clay as it would be the best way to represent a rock and it’s texture. To create the shape of the rock I converted newspapers into balls and rock like shapes and arranged those onto a piece of wood to give it the shape I want. I then rolled a large piece of clay into a thin flat surface. After the clay was rolled into a big enough sheet I placed on on the newspaper structure.

Adding texture:

    Since the shape was very smooth, I created texture on the rock with the help of another piece of wood by mostly beating it with a wooden plank. This not uneven texture helped make the rock look more realistic. 

    After the rock dried, I coated the whole rock with ceramic paint power so that when we put the structure into the furnace it gains a rock like colour.

2) Butterfly

    I decided to create the butterfly wings with cardboard and attach pistachio shells on them for texture and contrast. I had to spend a lot of time drawing the perfect wing shape in such a way that the shells have enough space to stick all over.

    I then started painting the pistachio shells, and when I was painting I realized that none of the shells were the same size or shape. They were all unique in their own way which is something that I then input into my concept as well.

    I then painted the butterfly wings in the same shades as I did for the shells as shown above. When I started sticking the shells I realized I had to try out different types of glue as well. I first used craft glue which didn’t work well as the bond was very loose and required too much product.

    My teacher then suggested superglue(fevikwik) which worked perfectly. I spent most of my time on the butterfly itself because first I had to attach the shells in such a way that they don’t clash and secondly, since they weren’t of constant shape, the placing was very impromptu.

Process/Materials

I got this slide straight from my submission
(zoom in to read) 

Reflecting:

What artistic skills did I develop?

    Through this artwork I learnt a new technique of ceramic art. This method is used in pottery, tiles, flower vases, and much more. This technique starts off with just plain clay, further painted with ceramic paint, and then put inside a furnace to heat until it gets a glossy finish. I used this glossy finish to create a realistic looking rock which was well represented by this method.

    Another artistic skill I developed was using waste materials such as pistachio shells and convert them into beautiful subjects to use in your art piece. And even though using waste materials isn’t something that is completely new to me, but using them to the extent that most of the artwork is based around that shows how I was able to efficiently use them to create treasure out of trash.

How does the piece justify the Intended Outcome?

    The intended outcome for this artwork was to show how people create stereotypes against people who don’t express emotions openly. People often think that if a person isn’t showing their emotions, then they don’t feel them as well, which is where the term “stone cold” or “made of rock” came into being. This artwork is essentially a representation of the opposite of that. It shows how even though the rock isn’t colourful on the outside for everyone to see, it can still feel emotions, which is where the butterfly comes in, the fact that the butterfly is sitting on a rock and not a pretty flower is shown to prove that even rocks can feel emotions, and if they don’t wanna show it through colours, that's completely fine,

calling them “emotionless” is more of an insult than a statement and can make the person question themselves.

What helped me?

    Creating a colour chart with various colours and the emotions that they represent helped me a lot while creating this artwork because it acted as a guide to form the butterfly. It helped me not repeat a certain emotion if incase it was represented by two colours and made the butterfly into something unique in itself. Having a personally created guide for colours also helped me develop my self management skills as I could efficiently choose the colours without wasting much time on that allowing me to spend more time on the painting and pasting process. 

What did I learn from this artwork?

    When considering important lessons, I believe that creating this artwork helped me become more patient and disciplined, that is because every step of this artwork required me to with wait a lot or work a lot. For example, painting the tiny pistachio shells in two coats took a lot of time and was a lot of work as well, however waiting for the rock to become fully ready from the furnace was mostly only patience. 

    Apart from that, I learnt how to be steady with my work as I constantly had to place things and super glue them in place. And once they’re stuck with fevikwik, removing them is close to impossible, so having a steady hand while gluing the pistachio shells was required and since there were many shells, I got used to being steady and patient. I was also able to fix a broken piece of my rock into the main body with the help of this ability. 

    I was also introduced to the idea of contradicting one piece with another inspired by Carina Crenshaw, I used that concept in my first and second artworks. The first one shows an overload of emotions to express but the person is unable to choose one and ends up expressing a mixture of multiple emotions. However the second artwork shows a person who doesn’t want to express a single emotion but feels all of them. Now if one looks deeply into the concept and big idea of the two artworks, one might notice that they to some extent counter themselves. Which is one of the new skills that I developed as a student.