Sunshine and Smiles, Hivers! It's been a while since I posted a blog post. In this blog, I'm going to share to you all how I prepare and make my Starry Night canvas for our Art Appreciation course. Let’s get started!
During my sophomore year, We had an Art Appreciation class and this class talks about different types of arts and cultures. Our professor in Art Appreciation give us a final project where we had to create a canvas using 3-5 methods of arts. I was thrilled and happy to make this project because I have a passion for art and was eager to show my artwork to the class.
I chose to reference Van Gogh's "Starry Night" for my project because this piece is vibrant and has many details that are very challenging for me to do, and I admire the blend of colors that the Starry Night has. I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could recreate it because "Starry Night" has lots of complex style. Also, Staryy Night is my favorite painting because of its blending of colors and the story behind of this art.
After that, I thought about making the painting into a yarn artwork since I know how to crochet, but I realized that this would only involve one method of art instead of 3-5 methods of arts. I think again for the design and choose to use old magazines for the houses at the bottom of the canvas and painted the sky using acrylic paint. I also decided to crochet the yellow circles and the swirling wind.
As you can see in the picture, this is day one of my canvas creation. Before I started, I sketched the details to help me guide in placing everything perfectly. I began attaching the magazine pieces to the lower section of the canvas using wood glue because regular glue wouldn’t secure the magazines effectively.
After placing the magazines, I moved on to adding the crocheted circles and the polymer clay for the black tower. I chose polymer clay because it is easy to mold and you can also used sticks and other sharp materials for helping you molding the clay. As you can see in the photo, I began putting the polymer clay in that area and carefully molded it since it is quite delicate. I put wood glue to the surface where polymer clays were being put, to make the clays stick to the surface of the canvas.
Here's a photo of my progress with applying polymer clays to the black tower. I'm thinking how to bake these polymer clays to make them more durable and firm. I have been researching on ways to bake them without using an oven because I don't know how to use our large oven.
I came up with an idea for baking my polymer clay using my mother's flat iron for clothes since I didn't have any other options to bake my polymer clays. Putting the flat iron closer to the polymer clays make the polymer clays dry and cooked. I just waited 30 minutes in each areas that I put polymer clay since the flat iron cannot covered all the clays.
After that, I put wood glue to the canvas to make sure the polymer clay will stick to the canvas and became sturdy when the canvas was hung on the wall.
After that, I added egg shells to the canvas to add more details of the artwork. I used the egg shells that my mother had put in our flower pots. She put all the used egg shells to the pot after making an omelette for breakfast because egg shells also serve as fertilizer for the plants. I crushed the egg shells into smaller pieces and removed the membrane of the egg shells to make them easier to crush.
As you can see in the picture, this is how it looked after I added all the egg shells. I also began attaching chain yarns for the wind. I decided to put this detail because I wanted to show my crochet skills into my artwork. These chain yarns make my artwork being unique.
Here’s a photo showing my progress in attaching the chain yarns. I used wood glue to make sure the chain yarns will stick well to the canvas and didn’t come off easily.
After applying all the chain yarns, I painted the egg shells blue and yellow with my acrylic paints. I chose acrylic paint instead of other type of paints since acrylic paints are good for canvas and it will not come off easily.
As you can see in the picture, this is the finished look of my canvas. This is what I wanted to achieve the look of my canvas, full of different methods of arts and I'm very happy with the final result. I'm still learning how to blend colors. As you can see, in the blue and yellow sections there are areas that turned green because I’m still figuring out the color mixing.
Here’s a photo of my work that I submitted to my professor. He told us that he would choose some best artworks that will be displayed in our mini-museum that will be happening in CME Week. I was happy that my professor chose my artwork for exhibition.
I forgot to take a photo of my canvas displayed in our mini museum because I was mesmerized by the other artworks I encountered while visiting the mini museum.
And that's the end of my blog, Hivers! This experience is one I will cherish forever. I am grateful to my professor for giving us a project that can help us excel our talents and show our emotions through art. For now, my artwork was displayed at our house and I plan to sell it once I can fully refurbish the canvas because some of the polymer clays had been crack and fell off and some has been broken.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and see you in my next blog! Ciao!