We had to write a letter to a friend about our two self portraits.



Terneuzen 29-11-10

Dear Evi

I am writing this letter to you because I want to tell you something about my two self portraits. We have painted two self portraits in Art class. We had to paint them in style of Vincent Van Gogh. There is a copy of my two paintings attached to this letter. We had to show two different kinds of expressions. They had to show you, how you see yourself. We had 4 lessons to finish the paintings. But I am not so fast, so I used the 7th period on Friday. Because I finish the sixth period it was possible. I will talk about the paintings now.

I will first tell you about the left painting. I wanted to show sadness, and confusion. I chose the colour dark green with a little bit of brown for the background. The dark colours already give an expression which shows sadness. I used complementary colours for the t-shirt. Because that is one of the characteristics of Van Gogh-Style. There are a couple of ways I used to express sadness. I used dark colours in the background to give it sad look. The corners of my mouth are slightly down. My eyes are big and I painted my eyebrows up a little. Which makes me look confused and sad. I tried to paint shadows with a little bit of green. I didn't use a lot of green because I was frightened that it would be too much. When I see my painting now, I would have used more shadows. I used the brush strokes the most in the background. But I had to use them in the face more when I look at my painting now. It was not so difficult to paint this expression. Because my parents divorced three years ago. And I will always remember what I felt when they told me. So I used that to paint the sad expression.

Now I will tell you about the right painting. It shows a surprising and happy expression. Because it shows happiness, I used light colours in the background. I mixed white, yellow and red. I used the complementary colour green for my t-shirt. I used a brighter colour for my lips. And my eyes are less wide than in the sad painting. I painted my skin colour less bright to draw the attention to my mouth and my eyes. I tried to use more brush strokes in my face, but I did not succeed in that. Although I think the shadow in my neck and at the right side of my face. I do not like the shadows around my nose, the shadow is too visible. And the colours in the background do not flow over smoothly. But that is because I did that background in two lessons, I could not get the right colour back the second lesson. This expression was more difficult for me to paint. Because I struggled with my mouth, I had some problems with the colours.

There are many differences and some similarities in the two paintings. The biggest difference is of course the background. But that was the assignment so that is obvious. If you talk about the expression, there are some differences. My eyes are bigger and have a sad expression in them on the left painting. The right one is more neutral. The only similarities are my shirt, my hair and my neck.



I am happy with the results. Especially because I am not that good at drawing normally. The expressions are visible and the colours are good. The brush strokes were good in the background, but not so good in my face. I liked the lessons a lot and I am really pleased with my mark.

See you soon Evi!
Your friend Carmen

This are my self portraits. The left one symbolizes sadness and confusion. The right one symbolizes happiness and suprise.

We had to make a project about a painting of an impressionist artist.















General information
The name of the painting is quite long: Bridge over a pond of water Lilies. It is painted by Claude Monet in 1899.
Some happenings from 1899:
- First peace conference in The Hague
- A copper mine in Japan collapses
- Philippine - American war
Claude Monet was born on the 14th of November in 1840. He lived in Paris. He went to an art school and was influenced by Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind and Gustave Courbet. In 1861 he went into the army for two years. When he was back from the army he went to another art school. Together with other student he had a painting style painting the effects of light en plein air with broken color and rapid brushstrokes. Later they called that style Impressionism.
In 1872 he painted his famous painting Impression Sunrise.
The name from that painting was later used for that kind of painting style: impressionism. In 1883 he moved to Giverny. He produced a lot of series of paintings. This painting belongs to the series Water Lilies. On one day he mostly worked on more painting from the series. Because the light kept changing. Claude Monet died on the 5th of December in 1926, when he was 86, of lung cancer. He is buried in Giverny.

The Painting
In the painting the main objects are the pond, the water lilies and the bridge. Above the bridge you can see some trees. And the pond is full of Water Lilies. The Lilies are a bit vague but you can still recognize them. There are a lot of light colours in this painting. There is a little bit of dark paint used for the reflection in the water. The main colours are:
- geen, light and dark for the lilies and the trees
- pink, for the lilies
- yellow, for the lilies
- white, for the bridge
- brown, for the trees and the reflection of the bridge
- blue, a little used for the pond

Art elements & art principles
In this painting you can see brushstrokes are used for most objects. For the pond, trees and lilies. This is a real realistic painting. It is a scene which is also realistic. Claude Monet used linear perspective in this painting. Because you can see that a vanishing point is used for the pond. There is not really direction or movement in this painting. The lilies cover almost whole of the pond so movement is hard to see. And the trees are not painted in different directions.



My opinion
I like this painting a lot! I love the light colours from the water lilies. And the trees are also painted really nice. And I think the painter was really smart to make a simple white bridge. Because al the attention is drawn to the lilies, the bridge has to be simple. Otherwise the painting would be too busy. I do not know negative things about this painting at all. And I think that people would like the work because of the use of colour and its simplicity.
If I had to grade this painting I would give it a 9. Because I think that paintings never can be perfect. And I just really like it. I would love to own this painting. If I would own this painting I would hang it on a simple white wall. I would do that so all the attention would go to the painting. I think you will remember the pond really well. Because it is beautifully painted




Sources
All resources are from 23-06-2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bridge_Over_a_Pond_of_Water_Lilies,_Claude_Monet_1899.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Lilies
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterlelies_(Monet)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1899

Canterbury

On Thursday the 5th of March I have visited the Canterbury cathedral. I thought it would not be very large. But I was wrong. The catherdral was immense big. And it was very beautiful.
A guide showed us the cathedral. It was very big. There were two building styles in the catherdral. that is beacause there were two different rulers in the time the cathedral was build. We have seen almost all the parts of the church, one part was closed. Because it was still used.
In the cathedral were huge stained glass windows. They were very pretty, and it was nice that the colours were bright, despite the fact that they were really old.
There only was one sad thing, the church was restourated at that time, so we could not see the hole church from the outside. But it was still beautiful.
The most interesting room was the room where St. Thomas was killed. Because the guide told the whole story and it was nice to listen to.

At the end i was tired of all the walking trouhg the church. But it was very interesting and worth to visit!