Aksana Sasnouskaya

I had only one photo of my heroine. Of course, a professional artist would get a better result than I did, but I'm learning and I hope to achieve a certain skill.

Reference drawing for the sketch

Realizing all the advantages of monochrome painting, I nevertheless added some other colours to the background and flowers, trying to keep the background in a calm range. With this approach, I tried to make a colour accent on the face and chest of my heroine, thereby emphasizing the very image of the heroine, as well as the symbolic meanings of the thistle flower and the hummingbird.

The thistle represents overcoming adversity and difficult situations. It's a symbol of resilience. In Celtic regions, the thistle represents devotion, bravery, determination, and strength. In addition, the thistle is considered a symbol of protection.

Hummingbird symbolism and meanings include joy, healing, good luck, messages from angels, and other special qualities. While they are tiny beings, hummingbirds pack a lot of powerful, positive energy. The biblical meaning of the hummingbird also represents faith and hope. We are reminded to stay still, live in the present, and stop dwelling on the past and needlessly dreaming about the future.

I chose the colour of the background, its dynamic construction to show the restlessness of life phenomena, and the symbolic objects I highlighted emphasize the position of my heroine and her personal qualities - activity, positive energy, the ability to captivate with her ideas and the ability to give the right direction to those who are next to her.

Chinese art form is popular for their silk paintings and paintings created with black or colourful brushstrokes. Japanese art form uses ink paints, oil paints for their woodblock printings and calligraphy.

The artistic tradition of monochrome painting originates in China, then it became widespread in Japan. In traditional Chinese painting, there are four main subjects that are fundamentally the same in Japanese painting: landscapes, portraits, birds and animals, flowers and trees.

FAN KUAN (范寬, ca.950–1032) was a Chinese landscape painter during the Song Dynasty (960–1279)

IKENAGA YASUNARI

Born in 1965 in Oita prefecture and graduated from the Midorigaoka High School (attached to the Oita Prefectural College of Arts and Culture). Painted on his own dyed linen canvas, his "bijinga (Portraits/ prints of beautiful women)" provide a sophisticated texture and taste. His first art book in 2014 is a long-seller and his works are also published as prints, calendars and coloring books. Even in foreign countries, his works are popular as design of stationeries and novels.

MARY WHYTE (b.1953) is an American figurative artist known internationally for her watercolors of contemporary people. 

This is definitely one of the most important contemporary watercolor artists that inspires me.

Portrait - the image of a person, his figure, facial features as the main idea of ​​the artist. The main task is to accurately convey the image and reveal its character.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669) was a Dutch baroque painter, draughtsman, and printmaker who was not only one of the greatest artists of all time, but created the most self-portraits of any other known artist.

Some my recent sketches in charcoal of a life model from the past few weeks.

Painter working. Reflection. Lucian Freud

The Last Judgment. Michelangelo Buonarroti

Soft self-portrait with grilled bacon. Salvador Dali

Self-portrait with injured eye. Francis Bacon

Self Portrait with Seven Fingers. Mark Chagall

Hand with reflecting sphere. Cornelis Escher

David with the head of Goliath. Michelangelo Caravaggio

"Woman, your place is in the kitchen!" canvas, acrylic, 60×90. artist Anna Silivonchik.

"Imperfect woman" 2021, textiles, mixed media. Anna Silivonchik

"Pearls of thought" 2021, 100×80×50. plexiglass, acrylic, artificial pearls. Anna Silivonchik

These are the amazing works of the artist Anna Silivonchik. I am more pleased that we both come from our lovely city. Her work is as amazing as she is, I enjoy it. My story is more prosaic - like in her first picture, but I decided to get out))

My theme of Stealing beauty was touched in a few things - how modern society influences outer and inner beauty and how it pushes modern women to be more active and express themselves. Based on these moments, I tried to reveal the internal interaction of the two sides of one female personality (passive, gentle and strong, active) in the personality of my heroine.

At the very beginning of the project, I clearly understood what I would like to do, and perhaps this somewhat limited me in experiments in my chosen electives. I knew what I wanted to focus on in my topic, but not all of what I planned turned out as I planned. Nevertheless, in general, I am satisfied with the result and I hope the course of my thoughts will be clear at the final viewing.

I have been exploring the theme of 'Movement' through ELECTIVES: PHOTO, PRINT and PAINTING. I was not able to attend all the master classes due to certain circumstances, but the result of each of them reflected the vision of my concept.

In the beginning, I took PHOTOgraphs of my model, which became the model for portraits in my main painting work. I also took a series of photos of hands and hair, from which I chose a few to explain one of my ideas in the project. The final photo shoots showed two sides of my character in portrait shots and in the exposure experiment I aimed to capture a moment of elusive beauty.

In the PRINT, I focused on the hands and body shapes of my Venus, trying to display more inner movement and fullness than physical. I also made a master class Wooden Letterpress printing blocks. I made the name of my project vague and at the final exposition I placed the letters in the form of a wave (having hinted at the bend of the hair).

Based on superhero comics, many social phenomena and trends can be traced. Before the full appearance of the canonical Supergirl, a woman or girl with similar abilities appeared in Superman comics at least four times. The main character was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino in 1959. She first appeared in Superman #123 (August 1958) as Super-Girl and in Action Comics #252 (May 1959) as Supergirl. She is Superman's cousin and has all the same powers and superpowers.

I made these two flowers (copied from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus). I thought about making an imprint of one of these flowers by putting it in the hand of my heroine (symbolically showing her purity and revealed sexuality), but when I finished my painting, I saw that it would become an extra element, so the flower will remain only in my sketchbook.

Tip Toland (Vaughn) is a ceramic artist whose work is subtly autobiographical: within a frozen moment, teeming with humanity, exists a vessel for her thoughts and feelings. She earned her BFA in ceramics at the University of Colorado and later received an MFA in ceramics from Montana State University. Her more recent three-dimensional stoneware sculptures are close to life size, sometimes larger. She uses paint, encaustic technique and hair to create figures with "uncanny skin quality, utterly convincing hand gestures and eerily spontaneous facial expressions.

MY FINISHED WALL