My Oil Painting done on Canvas is meant to depict Bipolar Disorder, more specifically the 'Lows' of BPD. From experience, when I have 'Highs' and 'Lows' my 'Lows' tend to make me depressed, low in energy, it makes me oversleep and sometimes under-eat. Due to the highly impulsive nature from BPD, it is important to realize these emotional 'Lows' are also episodes of the disorder. I wanted to depict this with dark colors of blues and whites and some blacks as well to really differentiate from the other half of this painting, 'The Wonderful Life' *This Painting is meant to be included with my other half of the painting on a different canvas; 'The Wonderful Life'
Inspiration:
Happi 115
Happi_115 is another Instagram Artist! She is a Viet-Chinese freelance artist and a full time junior designer located in Naarm/Melbourne. As we can see, she tends to enjoy creating whimsical illustrations and graphic work that depicts spaces of the unknown. Bunnies enter from one void into another in all her paintings! She is another one of my inspirations for my paintings because since this painting has another painting that belongs next to it, I really wanted to convey her bunnies entering another void.
Inspiration Piece
Sketches and Planning
As for my sketches and planning I truly didn't really 'plan out' my painting at all. I sort of saw these two different artists plus my idea and what else I wanted to include in it and decided to just go for it without any planning. I had a small plan, not much of a sketch. Lately, I've beginning to realize with myself that sketches give me an idea of what I can do, but actually writing out what to paint and create helps me more and I feel like it helps me be free and not be too restricted as to what I have to EXACTLY make.
Process
For my process, I began with analyzing the type of colorful and bright pallette that Happi has! Since, I am doing the opposite type of mood in my painting than Happi's I decided that I wanted to make the background a dark solid color, to sort of bring that strong contrast between 'The Wonderful Life' and this painting. As stated earlier, during a BPD 'Low' episode, I usually feel very tired, and down so using these dark tones and shades of blues and blacks, would accurately depict these emotions exactly.
After I completed painting my solid background for my painting, I then just went ahead to painting clouds and the bunnies. I wanted to give the illusion that the bunnies from the first painting are sort of flying into the next painting. So, I began by painting the bunnies coming from the left lower side of the painting. After that, I was pretty much finished. This painting was meant to be bland and not much abstract or colorful things included. This painting is meant to really contrast with the other painting, so I made it as simple as possible.
Critique:
Similarities: A similarity that we can notice between my painting and my inspirations work is pretty obvious, I used the same bunnies as she does and I painted them very similar to the way she paints her bunnies as well. Another similarity that we can notice is that my painting tends to use the same colors as the inspiration I piece I chose. Differences: Some differences that we can notice is that I didn't really paint the same mood as my inspirations paintings. Her mood in her paintings are very abstract and they seem very bright and happy, we notice that there is a lot of action and movement occurring in the painting as well. On the other hand, my painting doesn't have much of an abstract look to it and doesn't really seem to have the same mood as my inspirations, my mood of my painting comes off very sad and bland as well. It doesn't have the excitement as my inspirations work does.
Reflection:
In all honesty, doing this painting as a way to convey my BPD 'Lows' was actually very interesting. I tried to make this painting during one of my BPD 'Lows' but I couldn't really get myself to do it, so I did it once I felt happy again. A couple of days afterwards, I looked back at my painting and noticed that I truly was able to convey my 'Lows' BPD episode but to a certain degree. Overall, it came out truly amazing, and I feel actually very proud of this painting. After putting up this painting next to 'The Wonderful Life' it truly surprised me of how you can notice such a difference, its extremely different and the contrast between the two is so strong as well. You can truly see the significant difference between the two and it almost makes the viewer very curious as to why it's this way. That's how I view my BPD, split in half and very contrasting sides. When presenting my paintings together to my friends and family that was the first thing they tend to notice, the extreme difference in vibe and motion, so much action in one painting and an extreme drop in that action in the next painting. I feel that the both of them together truly do convey my BPD 'Highs' and 'Lows' episodes.
ACT Connections:
1) Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork? The effect of my inspirations artwork greatly effected my artwork, it helped me somewhat succeed in conveying the message of BPD 'Lows'
2) What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? I feel as though my inspirations; Happi_115 approach to my artwork would be a very positive approach considering how I was able to use their art pieces as a main inspiration for my art piece and as well as the message I was able to convey along with it.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? A very hurtful thing I've noticed when researching more in depth about my disorder is that many people and articles tend to view BPD as a very harmful and inadequate disorder that a person can have and they idealize people with BPD to be very aggressive and abusive and it's not that way at all so it was very hurtful to see those opinions being made by many people.
4) What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The central theme is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and 'Lows'
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred before beginning my project that it would be extremely difficult to convey a BPD 'Lows' but in the end it all seemed to work out very well.