The big oil painting project!

 

"Nanyang" (2010)

Oil painting

If you have seen my previous post, I have talked about an oil painting project! And this is it!

My teacher assigned us each an art movement to do that we have studied to an oil painting, themed "Nanyang" (which is my school name). My art movement is POP ART!

I had very limited knowledge or exprerience with pop art and it made me quite excited to be able to work on this supposedly fun art movement.

Little did I know how tiring it is to paint so neat and exact lines and shapes with zero blending of colours, especially when you are using oil paint (which is like the perfect blending medium). You have no idea how frustrating it is to try to make sure no two colours mix at all and to make sure that the colours did not have any hint of tones. I had to paint and repaint and paint again. But I think my efforts have not gone down the dirty drain :D

I used mainly primary and secondary colours (Red, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange). I tried to manipulate contrasting colours to make the colours POP out like POP ART. However, it didn't work out well and I ended up concentrating cooler colours in the middle (the stationary) and warmer colours in the background (the polka dots). This way, the stationary actually POP out more, and though it was not what I had originally intended, I was quite happy with the outcome.

The stationary represents homework and marking and any tedious work that our school students and staff have to go through on a daily basis. I arranged different stationary into the chinese words for "Nanyang", similar to what is embroidered onto our uniform, obviously to show that I am trying to portray a part of "Nanyang".  For a rather stressed-out student at that point, I thought it was the best way to portray my life in Nanyang. However, now that I think about it, I could have added in more variety of different things, that could have not only showed the stressful side of life in Nanyang, but also the happy side when I am enjoying with my friends and classmates.

I made sure that only the outlines of the stationary were painted in and no details were added to simplify them and create the simple and unique POP ART feel.

The polka dots for the background was my way of emphasizing that the art movement I was working on is POP ART. Perfectly round and perfectly arranged polka dots can be seen in many POP ART paintings and is probably one of the most representative aspects. So I traced out the exact same circle from the rim of a chicken essence bottle in a regular pattern. Painting the background was probably the most tedious as painting circles neatly is definitely not something I was good at.

All in all, I am quite satisfied with my work, even though I could have added more substance (not just stationary) to make my painting seem more meaningful. Also, I think having a deeper artistic intention would be more meaningful.

P.S. Don't you think the background of the painting looks similar to the cheese plates I made for my coursework? I just thought of it!

P.S.S. I am quite happy to know that Zhiping wanted to bring my painting home!