Born in 1840, Odilion Redon was one of the most influential symbolist painters, his works explore a world of dreams fantasy and imagination. In his earlier works Redon found black to be the the best color with which he could express his emotions and fascination with the darkness. He would go on to name this collection of carefully drafted drawings and lithographs done in black his noirs. He would frequently draw insperation from literature, with his favorites being Poe, Flaubert and mallarme. As his carrer went on he slowly started shifting to a more colorful pallate, at first just adding hints of pastel to his old works, then working his way to a style which merged his draughtmanship skills with a newfound appreciation for color. In these works he would first create detailed drafts of graphite and charcoal, then using pastel fixers he would build up many layers of pastel upon that backgound. He would leave his works sort of uncompleteted in order to create a sense of ongoing exploration.
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In many of his works He contrasts more delicate desaturated colors, with harsh blocks of highly pigmented color, particularly red or blue. In my piece I want to bring in a sort of gentle coloration and create contrast. I really want to focus on creating more abstract while utilizing Redons vibrant use of color.
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Originally I had wanted to create a piece that would evoke mystery and wonder which I called "heart of the forest". Many of my previous pieces had either been rather realistic or didn't utilize color, so with this piece I wanted to practice utilizing both color and a more abstract style to convey a feeling. I had planned for this piece to emulate the works Redon did in charcoal and pastel through charcoal and chalk pastel, however that soon had proved to be a problem. Throughout the creation of this piece, the chalk pastel wasn't binding to the page well and would just fall off and blur together. The pastel wouldn't layer over the charcoal in the ways that it did in Redons works such as Joan of arc (1900) or the crown (1910) however this was probably due to the fact that Redon used high quality pastels. Additionally I was unsatisfied with how the composition of the piece was looking in its final state, so I decided to re-evaluate where I wanted to go, and ultimately just decided to restart the piece altogether. |
I wanted to keep the symbols of the heart and forest that I had put into my original piece, but wanted to alter the meaning and utilization of these elements. In this redone piece I wanted to explore a connection to femininity, changing the heart of the forest into a interconnected series of veins emerging from a woman, forming this sort of forest behind her. I also wanted to draw from Redons noirs, which frequently featured ghoulish faces staring intensely at the viewer |
On the wooden board I applied several layers of white paint, then blurred together several pastel colors, then applied another layer of white in order to create a sort of opalescent background for me to work. At this point in time I was inspired by the color palate of Redons 1895 Pegasus Then I sketched out the woman and the veins onto the board with a colored pencil
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