Outcome

I selected Paul Signac’s Place des Lices, St. Tropez. When I first saw the painting from a distance, I wasn’t able to see the lone figure at first, but I was drawn to the scenery that I could see. I like looking at scenery, and thought Signac’s painting had an interesting contrast between the dark trees in the foreground looking out into the light in the background. As I drew closer to the painting, I noticed the paintings had been created using tiny brushstrokes, like small dots.

I thought it was fascinating that I hadn’t noticed the technique when I first saw it, so I walked further away from it to see if the colors actually blended, or if I had just not paid attention to the dotted effect. I couldn’t go that far since I was in a gallery, but I was able to notice the dots on a smaller scale. I believe I had not been paying attention to the technique because I was more interested in the content of the artwork and wanted to know more about it.

As I looked at the painting again, I could see the lone figure sitting on the bench, and maybe because it was chilly that day, but I imagined myself inside the painting as that person. The more I stared at it, the more I really wanted to be in that person’s position, just sitting and left to my own thoughts. I took note of the yellow brick wall, and the bright sky in the background, and I felt that the time of year was between spring and summer. There were no clouds in the sky, and the way some of the leaves were lighter than others made it seem as if the light coming through the trees was uneven, and the blending of the edges of the leaves and the sky made it seem as if there was a slight breeze, blowing the leaves.

The setting seemed so peaceful in that painting, and it was easy to imagine myself on that bench because the figure did not have much of a shape, nor did the person have many defining characteristics. As time passed, the less I paid attention to the details and the techniques Signac used, and the more I imagined myself in that place.

I decided to focus on my feelings of wanting to be in the painting, and my inability to do so. I decided to first draw several grayish blue lines across the screen, slanted, as if there was a barrier between myself and my work. This was to represent how I was separate from what was inside the painting, and in the real world. I created another layer to focus on what made me want to be in the painting in the first place. I used warm colors, like yellow, orange, and red, to represent warmth and a comfortable feeling. I used some green and blue because of how I felt that the time of year was spring, and the weather was good.

In this layer, I didn’t particularly focus on a shape and instead drew multiple lines of each color and blended them together, so as to represent an overall comfortable and welcoming feeling, and yet, when combined with the other layer, this feeling would be obviously obscured, such as I was prevented from fully immersing myself in the setting of Signac’s painting.

It was very difficult for me to express how I felt and my own experience with the painting in an art form. I considered other options, such as maybe drawing a fireplace, to show how I was cold and looking at the painting made me feel warmer, but I felt that it didn’t express how I felt isolated from the place in the painting.

I think I captured the experience mostly accurately. I was able to show the discord I felt between my own environment and the environment in the painting, and the warmth that I felt from that painting using warm colors. I could not obtain what I wanted just by staring at the artwork.

Something I would do differently is incorporate some of the techniques that Signac used in the painting, such as using small brushstrokes to simulate dots, because that was part of my experience. I was fascinated by how so many brushstrokes of different colors could work together and blend in a way such that an image could be created. I should have maybe attempted to replicate that technique in my own creation.