C. Bechstein Abstract

Statement: This final piece of art is a piano. An abstract piano, inspired by the collages of Pablo Picasso made up of many layers.
What I’ve done here to express myself is use colours that represent me and what I love. Purple which is a major colour used in this work is in fact my favourite colour. The use of orange and yellow are complimentary to the purple but also express the lighter, bubbly side of me. The small ink patterns drawn finally represent my constant need to have detail in my artworks. As I am naturally a traditionalist artist I have a tendency to include detail in the majority of my artworks.

I chose to base my abstraction around the piano as it is my forte when it comes to music. I have been playing piano since the age of eight and continue playing it today. The materials and mediums used are all mediums that I favour. The one medium that I did not include which is a preference of mine is charcoal; this is because of its unpracticalness when drawing on a surface like canvas. However watercolour and ink are very practical for an assignment like this so I was tempted to use these mediums as much as I could. I believe the watercolour adds a very loose yet controlled feel to the artwork; it also creates a lot of depth with its transparency.

Unfortunately a great challenge of this assignment was the size. Relating to before when I mentioned how much I liked detail, when producing smaller works it’s far more comfortable to control your work with a lot of detail so when working a large surface like this made that element extremely difficult. I initially thought that I could accomplish this by working on little parts at a time; however that thought slipped my mind during the creating stage, but it still worked in the end without that idea.

As you’ll notice there is a repeated theme of shapes throughout this artwork. The two main blocks of purple in the centre of this piece represent the solidness of the piano. Whilst the piano being a light and delicate instrument (which is shown with the doodles and yellow) it is also a strong and deep instrument, it is able to play not only small and happy pieces but also reach to lower, darker styles of music.
When viewed you instantly realise how busy and ‘messy’ the layout of the artwork is. I believe this is a representation of my life at the moment. With school, friends and other commitments my time right now is very busy and jam-packed, and as I created this artwork I think that all those thoughts which were going through my mind at the time really affected this piece.

Overall, I am happy with this piece. I must admit it’s not my favourite work of art but it is me. That is me expressed onto that canvas. I have thought of what can describe me and who I am, and tweaked it into something which looks pleasing to me. Unfortunately with Expressionism it is a style that is fond of immediacy. Usually when I’m creating a new piece of art I tend to plan it out more, especially for backgrounds, because backgrounds need to be suitable for the subject matter. If I could somehow next time work my way around that yet still be immediate, I believe I would be much happier with the result.

'C. Bechstein Abstract'
Medium: Mixed Media
Size: 20 x 24"
Time: 1 Week