Exam piece - sanctuary

I took pictures of trees to capture the movement of the branches. I used a range of different materials to try to capture this movement, e.g i used ink dripped down a page to get the branches then worked in to it with biro.

The art history that i looked at was Mondrian and Van Gogh. So i could look at the way they managed to capture the reality and movements of the trees.

The trees painted by Mondrian and Van Gogh captured my eye because of the way they managed to capture the reality of the trees, and how they managed to create different moods in within the painting.

The idea for the exam piece came from seeking sanctuary in the forrest. This idea then developed in to having something in the forest to symbolise the life and growth within the forest.

This then developed in to the idea of a heart as it is fragile and the forest also harbours a lot of new life. This thought then developed and the branches could symbolise the veins and arteries.

The use of oil paints enabled the brush strokes to be created and capture the flow of the bark. I decided to create the final piece on three canvas' then join these together do it opens and closes, to created the effect of that you were actually surrounded by the trees and it was as if you were in a forest. The brightness of the final piece in contrast to some of the prep work that i did was lighter and i gave the effect that maybe there was hope within and beyond the forrest.

Third project

In my last project i used a range of bright colours and acrylic and i didnt think this turned out well. So i decided to go back to the image using the range of browns, yellow and white, that i had experimented with in my last project. Also the faces on the last project were to small to get the details in the face so i decided to just concentrate on the face. I also decided to carry on the theme of the light an dark, as i liked the effect that it created on the different moods that it could create.


This image is a copy of one of the many photos that i took for using a torch as the light souce. I had looked at Caravaggio's paintings and De La tour's and Tai-Shan Schierenberg paintings and they had stuck to a range of browns.











Caravaggio, Georges De La tour and Tai- shan Schierenberg are the artists that i focused on because both Caravaggio and De La Tour captured the light and dark in the paintings and i wanted to be able to capture this in my final piece. Ilooked at Tai-shan Scherenberg because i liked the way that he managed to capture all the definition in the feature on the face and the way that the pictures were painted.

These are a few of the pictures that i took experimenting with the light source coming from different angles.

I also tried in wax crayon to create the effect of the light and dark.





I also did etchings of the pictures. I tried this in different colours and and on different material to see what it looked like. I experimented on fabric, wall paper and normal white paper, each surface gave a different effect to the image.

The final image i painted was done in oil paints as i liked working with them in the first project as the acrylics in the secondproject didnt turn out as well as i would have liked. The oil paints enabled me to capture the brush stokes on the face and allowed me to appy the paint quite thickly. I chose to stick to white, yellow and brown as this allowed me to work from a light shade to a darker shade. Also many of the artists that i looked at stuck to these three colours and i liked the effect that it created.

Second project

As my last project focused on the light and dark of the image i wanted to carry this on through my next project. so i looked at images that portrayed the light and darkness of the photos.


I wanted to incorporate a range of colours in to this so i looked at fauves, to give me some ideas of how i could use colour in my end result. These images caught my eye as the use of colour that had been use stood out and created a different effect, than just sticking to just three colours.

I copied the fauves images in blue and green biro and in some places black biro.


However i looked at the possiblity of just using a pallet with a range of shades of brown, also white and black. I used acrylics for this painting.













For some art history to portray the llight and dark aspect of the painting i looked at Joseph Wright of Derby and did some pencil sketches of his work. Many of his painting were situated around a table and there was many different situation around a table that had been captured, for example the on in the picture on the left is his experiment on a bird in an air pump.

Some of my own photos

Overall i came up with this final image of two people in conversation and the third looking disinterested. I painted this final image in acrylics but i dont think that it turned out as well as my other images and it started to look slightly better when i went over part of it in oils. Also it took many coats of the acrylics as the focus of light and dark wasnt as strong as i would have liked so this resulted in me having to add many layers of paint to the canvas.