Limited Palette Painting

Jorge Gomez-Corril

Artist Statement

Ms.Hertz

January 7, 2018

Limited Palette Painting

As for my project choice for quarter 2, I decided to choose the Limited palette painting. For my painting I choose to do a Mexican flag in order to show some sort of respect for my culture and background. It is made up of three colors; red, white and green. In the middle of the flag there’s an eagle on top of a cactus biting a snake. Through my work, I would want the viewer to have an understanding of what my ethnic background is and how it means something to me. I could have chosen something else, ie a self portrait or an image of the sunset but the flag is just something very meaningful and I decided to incorporate that in my painting. There’s not a lot of times where there’s an opportunity to show off your ethnic flag and this was a great opportunity to show that off.

The tools that I used to create my work were; acrylic paint, brushes, pencil, eraser, cup of water,  newspaper, palette, cloth,  paper towel, wood  and a palette knife. First  I had to sketch an outline of my flag with pencil and eraser. Then, I cut a piece of wood and used it as my base while covering it with a cloth and painted it white (with special paint)  so it would have a white base. So when I was ready to start painting, I used acrylic paint because I thought it would stand out more than water colors to draw out the details in the flag, the brushes were used in order to do this and I used a variety of sized brushes. The cup of water was used in order to clean off the paint after I was done with it and then I would use a paper towel to clean off the water. After I was done with my work, the last step was to sit it on top of a newspaper to let it dry.

My current work relates to my previous work because they both had to do with my connection that is close to limited and non existent with my ethnic roots. I am not well connected with my background and don’t have a large understanding of my culture so I thought that by informing myself and creating this work, it would encourage me to have a better outlook on that. I am most proud of how this work came out because I was expecting it to be much worse that how it came out. This was an interesting experience to go through and choose my own project. The only thing that I would change about this project is the amount of colors we were allowed to use. Some people can’t limit themselves to 5 colors in one artwork. Through my completion of this project, I’ve learned that it’s not good to waste your time on other things while instructions are being given and always use your time wisely because those were two things that majorly negatively impacted me.