This statement will discuss the progress of my artwork, concepts of my final major and timescale discussions of my proposed final major. The review of my own practices and the influence of other artists will be integrated throughout the statement, hopefully giving it a more dynamic structure.
The key influence for all of my work during this foundation year has to be Chuck Close. Close was the reason I started to scale up my portraits to a size substantially larger than my previous. I knew from the start that a self portrait similar to his would be my starting point for my final major. My decision to set out and finalise my ideas for a final major at the start of the year was purely down to how comfortable I feel about drawing portraits. The part that would push me out of my comfort zone however, would be the size and detail required to achieve hyperrealism. Around the start of lock down, my studies and techniques saw a massive increase in quality. This was down to the study and analysis of these two portrait artists; Kelvin Okafor and Arinze Stanley. One of the main things I had avoided before studying these two artists, was the use of different media in a graphite portrait. There is always potential to damage or ruin a drawing when mixing media. Under advice from teachers and peers I chose never to introduce alternative media. However, one of the things my teacher pointed out during a critical evaluation of my final major self portrait, was the lack of depth it possessed in comparison to a charcoal portrait I'd done the year before. I soon came to realise that the way Stanely and Okafor achieve such detailed and accurate drawings is by using charcoal to develop darker tones where it would be otherwise impossible with graphite.
Studying Okafor’s work in comparison with Stanley’s has allowed me to see the entirely different process of working they both have. Stanley’s compositions tend to be extremely accurate to the reference he uses, showing a high degree of both photorealism and hyperrealism. Okafor, however, tends to subtly change some aspects of the original drawing to give it a more airbrushed and delicate look. Under close scrutiny, he seems to divert slightly from basic aspects of the reference photo to produce an almost airbrushed look. Okafor seems unbridled by having a slightly different eyebrow or eye shape, as long as the finished composition looks hyperrealistic. Upon discovering these styles of working, I’ve preferred to look at Stanley’s work to get the raw and genuine photo accurate compositions he produces and look at Okafor purely for techniques and process rather than the overall outcome.
One key aspect of my work I’ve been wanting to improve is a certain graininess that appears due to spending a large amount of time working into a composition. I managed to narrow it down to the fault of low quality paper and spent days looking through paper I had, to determine the best to use. I ended up purchasing Bristol paper after a few recommendations.The incredibly smooth texture allowed mediums to be perfectly blended into the paper without leaving the grainy look and furthermore, my compositions maintained their hyper realistic values. The more and more I develop work using this paper, the more I appreciate the quality of it.
I've decided that the name for my final project will be ‘i’. I feel as the proposed goal will compose of a singular, large self portrait, there is no better fitting title describing what it entails. I decided what I wanted my final piece to be last October after reminiscing over my 2nd year coursework being a large charcoal self portrait scaled at around 1.5 x 1.5 meters. I knew that my final major would be portrait based, as I feel it is what I excel at. However, instead of completely reliving the process, I wanted to revert to my previously preferred medium of graphite. If however, I had focused more on hyperrealistic artists prior to the near completion of my final major, I would have definitely integrated charcoal into the composition to add an extra sense of depth and tonal contrast. The switch back to graphite came after drawing actor Emilia Clarke’s eye in graphite and feeling overwhelmingly positive about the result. It gave me a new reinvigorated confidence in the medium.
I composed Clarke’s eye using graphite pencils, erasers and blending stumps, progressively building up the eye and the surrounding areas until I was pleased enough with my progress to call it finished. I spent a considerable amount of the time on developing the skin and its texture, something I’d never really done before but is a key part of hyperrealism. The outcome was very successful, the tonal value varies throughout, adding exponential depth to the composition. Furthermore, the finely drawn pores and wrinkles add that extra inch of realism, giving the composition life and dimension. The darker graphite pencils have been utilised to create soft shadows around certain aspects of the eye, implying multiple light sources were used during the photoshoot. The main criticism I have of this specific composition is the lacking softness and smoothness that the bristol paper, I mentioned earlier, allows you to have. Due to this, the composition has a slight grainy and rough feeling which seems to suggest it’s an eye of someone in anguish, rather than in delicate bliss. Trying to vary my use of mediums, Eilish’s portrait is composed using a biro pen, something I’d taken a liking to in my pre foundation work. I used just the one pen, aiming to achieve photorealism with as few tools as possible. Biro tends to be a high risk/reward medium as one line too dark or a slip of the hand resulting in a scribble cannot be erased. However, it provides rapid coverage of the portrait as tens of layers do not necessarily have to be added. As a moderately impatient person, I found this extremely inviting as I could get positive composition results a lot faster than if i was using pencil. Furthermore, white gel pen used to create highlights appears a lot more natural in the composition, giving the highlights that man made and shiny realism.
The majority of techniques used fall under the stereotypical list of techniques you’d expect for any graphite related composition; shading for depth, crosshatching for tone, stippling for texture, sketching for outlines and blending for realism. The tools used, however, are not so simple. I used a range of 4H - 14B graphite wood pencils, 2B - 8B woodless graphite pencils, 2B, 6B and 9B graphite crayons and a HB mechanical pencil. In addition to this, a large array of blending stumps were used to properly give the composition a smooth and soft look. Many types of erasers were used to create vibrant highlights, varying from putty erasers to electrical erasers. Obviously the use of all these mediums requires a surface to apply them to so a very large piece of Fabriano paper was sourced (from our art cupboard) which measured around 1.5 x 2 meters, so only slightly bigger than my last self portrait. The usage of these tools is extremely important. After discovering new techniques surrounding how to detail an iris, I took a leap, erased the iris and started fresh. Instead of copying micro marks, and extremely fine details that the viewer would barely see on the reference photo, I made the details a lot more suggestive. I did this by adding tone to the obvious darker areas of the iris and blended it out into the lighter areas. Once the basic tones were down, I put the reference photo away and used my Mono Zero eraser (a pencil eraser) to add highlights to create depth and realism. After that, I used an HB mechanical pencil to add a starburst effect emitting from the centre of the pupil, outwards to the edge of the iris.
To conclude, my major project 'i' was successful, in that it was my first real attempt at hyperrealism on this large scale and the end composition was accurate, pleasing and most importantly, realistic. Playing devil's advocate, the composition would've been more successful if I had started it at the scheduled start of the project, with all the new found knowledge concerning techniques and processes. I feel the result would have achieved a lot higher quality if I had nailed the techniques a lot earlier in the creation process. Problems further arose surrounding curatorship. This was mainly due to the size of the piece, however, some slight tears and rips had developed around the edges of the paper, slightly warping the right (left as you look at it) shoulder. The work around for this was undergoing a paper repair in which I used a strong adhesive and a section of the same Fabriano paper to give it its natural look back. The changes I would make to the project seem fairly obvious; I'd like to have used a higher quality, softer and thicker paper - to decrease damage and remove undesirable texture from the composition. Furthermore, I feel my technique knowledge has developed so much that I could cut down the time to ~125 hours rather than ~200.
Bibliography
Chuck Close - a portrait in progress
The difference between photorealism and hyperrealism
Books that have influenced my work
Key instructional videos
How to draw hyper realistic eyes
How to draw a hyper realistic eye
Timescale proposal & Main Blog
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