Exhibition and Critique of My 3 Final Pieces

Before

After

The two larger paintings link clearly with the theme of shells with the smallest piece being quite unclear other than the obvious crystal texture, however all three of the paintings link with the use of bright colours. I feel like the chalk shells in the biggest piece are drowned out by the vivid colours in the background and are quite transparent because of the medium, perhaps they would stand out more with some subtle white paint strokes. The placement of the pieces seems to work well to bring your attention to each piece with the focus being on the biggest piece in the centre. The placement of the small piece on top also works well as you can see the light reflecting of the salt crystals which makes them more obvious and makes the texture of the piece more visible to the person looking at it. I feel that the bottom piece works well placed there as it allows the person viewing it to see the layers of different colours in the hands and shells.

The smaller piece was produced in a similar style to the artist Karen Hansen, with the colours focusing on those in crystals and the salt crystals on the painting to create the texture and theme of crystals for the piece. The biggest piece was also produced in a similar style to the artist Karen Hansen with the focus being on the colours in the shells, to re-enhance the theme of shells there is a subtle chalk drawing of some shells with the background acting as their colour and texture. The bottom piece was drawn from a photograph and painted in the style of the artist Linzi Lynn with the use of bright and unusual colours, the colours were used to create texture, tone and shadowing in the painting so that it was obvious that it was a pair of hands holding some shells. The background consists of varying tones of a sandy-gold colour so that the attention is not drawn away from the object itself.

I feel like the placement under the light works well to an extent, however I feel that more natural lighting from the sun would help to bring out the colours in the piece and make them more vivid and bright, especially with the bigger piece as it contains many warm colours which would be highlighted by natural sunlight. This can be seen in the comparison photos of before and after as you can see in the before photo a small section that is being touched by sunlight and the colours are much more beautiful and bright than in the after picture where there is no sunlight.