Intention
The original painting was optimistic and straight forward, clean and direct. I want to change the feeling of the painting into the opposite: dark, pessimistic, twisted and dirty.
Outcome
Work
This is one of his
earlier paintings. It was painted when the whole country fell into war. This is
when Xu’s style began to change; from standing horse to galloping horses, he
has changed from his own feeling to the outcries of people. The artist used
only one or two kinds of ink, and used different shades to create a vivid
running horse. The legs and hair are emphasized by darker ink, and the body is
left white, mimicking the reflection of sunlight.
Approach
I thought about the
painting as a whole. The horse is a symbol of power and energy, a symbol of the
forever powerful mankind standing against the dark. It is running vigorously
towards the light. So I think I want to invert this impression. I want to use
the same horse, but somehow create a darker and more negative atmosphere.
Product
What I did was fairly
simple; I am not good at painting or Photoshop, so I just tried a few filters,
and trying to make them come out the way I want. I first distorted the painting
with the oil painting filter. The horse itself had a positive figure. The
filter made it slimier, turning from a horse glowing in the sun, to a black
horse gliding through the dark. Then inverting the background, I tried to make
it darker, like running into the night forever.
Reflection
I think I did OK trying to invert the original intention of the horse. I couldn’t do much, so I used the simplest way to change the image, by changing the color, and distorting the figure. It is not as evil as what I hope it can be, but it somewhat tells it. I think because I can’t change much of the figure, so it is OK to me. The original horse was sort of abstract, so it is also hard to make specific adjustments.
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