Artist Emulation Reflection

I thoroughly researched Joan Miro and his work in order to emulate his works as accurately as possible.   I made several sketches based off of his work and then tried to add some of my own ideas into my final project, creating a blend between my ideas and his.  My workbook resembles my understanding of Miro's work very well because I tried to redo his own works in a slightly different way to get used to his style and to develop new ideas based on surrealism, which Miro very much supported.  I tried using different mediums to experiment with which one I liked best, even though Miro mainly used pencil to sketch and paint as a final.  I used pastels in a couple of my sketches, which add an interesting texture, but I preferred colored pencils, so I used those for the majority of my sketches.  I think I succeeded in the sketches that mostly resembled my final works because I like how I experimented with shape and color in order to find a perfect hybrid between the two.  I think I could've worked more on drawings that had more of a "shape" to them rather than just the swirly maze-like images.  I tried to capture Miro's principal ideas of abstract shapes coming together to form a larger shape, but they weren't too successful, so I definitely could've dug a little deeper in that field.  I mastered Joan Miro's smooth painting well with the help of the acrylic flow release, which smoothed out the paint and hid the paint brushes as well as helped conceal my original pencil marks.  I could've worked on smoothing out my black lines more in order to give the picture a more "clean" look that Miro expressed in his final works. My studies led to my ultimate piece because I mimicked a lot of my sketches in my final painting.  I knew I wanted to do a maze-like abstract shape in my final, so I focused a lot of my sketches on trying to master that concept.  The majority of my sketches embodied that form of drawing, so they enabled me to have a good idea of how to formulate my final work.  My final work exhibits my understanding of Joan Miro because even though he didn't do a single painting that looked identical to mine, I used his style, such as smooth painting, using reds, yellows, greens, blues, and blacks in my final work.  I incorporated his idea of making "blocks" of different colors and forming them into one big shape, but I added my own style to it by not using it in a different object, such as a man like Miro did.  I made it on its own so it drew the audience's attention and showcased in my final piece.  This also helped my understanding of paint and how much a different brush or brushstroke or surface you paint on can change the overall mood or attitude of the painting.  With my penpal, I tried to point out what he executed well, while also pointing out some ways he can improve his final work.  We discussed back and forth ways to improve the paintings, as well as praising the current works.

I found working with acrylic paint adding some flow release the easiest medium to work with.  I felt very comfortable with it by the end of the project, and I found new ways to employ the paint using different brushes and brush strokes.  I used Joan Miro's idea of using blocks of color with a thick black line outlining the shapes but I added the spiral, circular shape to my work.  I also incorporated Joan Miro's smooth brushstrokes into my painting and used his color palette, but employed my own shape.  I think I used good, bright colors in order to convey my work, and I also outlined and planned by painting very well.

Artist Emulation Final

Artist Emulation in Progress