EUROPA AND THE BULL PAINTING DOCUMENTATION

COLOUR PALLETE (Art spectrum oil paints)

- Titanium white - Phthalo blue- Spectrum green light- Ivory black - Spectrum yellow- Prussian blue- Spectrum blue (cobalt blue hue)- Burnt sienna- Spectrum orange- Spectrum red- Yellow ochre- Australian red gold- Payne’s grey- Raw umber

OTHER MATERIALS- Linseed oil- Turpentine - Brushes

EARLY TRIALS

I wasn’t sure how to begin painting so I thought it would be smart to do a couple small trials painting with oil paints since I’d never done it before. I was told to just do a rough outline of the shapes since I will be consistently painting over the top. I used small canvas tiles to do this. It was really beneficial because it gave me a clearer understanding of how the colors work together, especially when mixed.

I discovered that by thinning out the paint it became a very different color/shade (i.e. the Australian red gold when thinned out becomes very yellow and then mixed with a bit of white creates a nice flesh color). Turps became very useful with the mixing of colors and applying thinner coats of paint was key for me to see the contrasts and how things would turn out.

DRAWING WHAT I WAS PAINTING

Because what I’m doing is appropriation of art works of Greek mythology, I wanted to draw what I wanted to paint and how I would change the original image. This would

mean I wasn’t painting blind so to say and that I actually had a plan for what to paint. So with Europa and the bull I wanted to change the image from a love affair to a terrifying kidnapping. The original image contains lots of little cupids flying around with a light sky, Zeus (in bull form) wearing a flower crown and other people frolicking in the water around Zeus and Europa. I took out the happy people in the water and the cupids and Zeus’ flower crown and put in my interpretation of the Greek god Phobos (God of terror/fear) and darkening the sky, however color wasn’t included in the drawing. This is the original image compared with my version:

I keep the position of the bull and Europa the same so whoever is viewing the work can recognize the painting if they have knowledge of ancient Greek myth or renaissance art. I changed the facial expression slightly so it’s more fearful. Phobos’ appearance is only referenced once in ancient literature and he’s described as a lion with fire in his eyes so I drew upon this so I had an accurate representation (lion roaring).

PAINTING & COLOR MIXING

Once I got my canvas I wanted to draw some outlines of the image so I would have guidelines when I began filling in the sky and ocean, this took longer than expected to get size balance between shapes and even when I started painting I wasn’t completely happy with it (especially the lions head) but I need to begin painting or I would run out of time. The first thing I did was fill in the sky, to get the color I wanted I had a combination of phthalo blue, titanium white, spectrum blue, Prussian blue and a tiny amount of spectrum green light. The mixture was however predominately phthalo blue and titanium white. Since I painted the sky over a few days and I ran out of the same mix I had to remix and the combinations so there are multiple layers to the sky because the colors were always a bit different or a lot different. However, it was often useful because the colors would mix and create a new shade I liked even more but then to try and blend it all so it wasn’t blotchy was tedious and sometimes frustrating.

Next came the ocean, I wanted the ocean to have a much more greenish look and darker as well just to

make a more somber look to the overall painting. I used the same colors as the sky but with a green base rather than a blue one.

When filling in the sky and water I was at first very delicate around the lines of the lion, bull and Europa but it was time consuming and Beavis told me to not worry if I go over the line because once it dries it’ll be easy to go over using thicker paint, no matter the color, which has proven true. I hadn’t done anything to create waves or depth in the image because I was painting at such a slow pace I just wanted to move on to the next area.

Once I moved on from the ocean and sky, I chose to do Europa’s blowing shall thing. The colors used for this were a mix of titanium white, spectrum orange, and spectrum red. I wanted a peachy orange color, it ended up darer than I expected but I think the different shading and different tones helped make it look like it was actually flowing in the wind and also helped create a sense of where the lighting was coming from. To also give it some texture I used a really thin amount of raw umber to great the creases that would be present in a flowing shall. This part of the painting became one of my favorites because it actually demonstrates a source of light, shading/shadows, and texture. When I painted Europa’s dress I found it difficult to shade as well as maintaining the color, I also couldn’t distinguish the body shape with just tones and brush strokes. I tried to keep her dress design as close to the original image as possible.I chose to use Australian red gold and titanium white because it creates a really nice flesh color and depending on how much white you add you can get variants of how dark the skin color gets. My first coating however was too yellow, and when I tried to create shadows (especially on the leg), using paynes grey, it came up very odd and when I tried to go over it I hadn’t waited for it to dry which made it even more unrealistic and just spread the paint making the leg shapeless. Europa’s hair is also one of my favourite parts of the painting because there are lots of different tones and it sort of looks like its flowing, it’s the most accurate part of the painting in reference to the painting appropriated.

These images show a lot of progress since the last documentation. The lion has been painted, which was something I found every hard to express the direction of lighting as well as getting the different tones of fur and make the lion genuine. You can see through the photos above that there was a lot of layering done with the lion and eventually it became darker with sharper lines.

- this is the source image I used for the lion.

The bull also had a lot of layering done to it, I found it especially difficult to get the right color(s) and generate shading on the bull and show skin folds without distorting the image. I used Australian red gold and white initially and added some raw umber and burnt sienna along the way. Almost every stroke was a different tone. I also had a lot of trouble with the bulls face to make it look like it was facing the right way and get the layering of the eye lid and etc. right, I think from further away this has come up ok but if you have a really close look it is quite messy and makes the bull look like it has a lazy eye. The mouth from a couple steps back looks like it has accurate coloring, I used Australian red gold, titanium white, burnt sienna, and flesh pink to create this part of its head. I needed to provide the ears some color and texture. I added thin lines to contour Europa’s dress using paynes grey and they just made the image even more unrealistic however I did another very thin layer of the pink dress color (I used turps to thin it out) and it created believable creases in the dress. I made her sandal a darker color (paynes grey) and this makes it stand out a lot, to an undesirable level but I didn’t know how to fix it without ruining it so I just left it. Her exposed leg eventually (through a lot of layer of paint) got to color I could pass off as shading. I added small spots of shading all over Europa’s upper body in an attempt to fix the lighting problem and simulate the appropriated image but I feel like the amount was a bit excessive and inaccurate. The lion’s eye I just added different colors and lines to create flaming diamond shapes to make it scarier. The girl’s face was to prove the hardest task yet; to make it look like she was actually fearful and not staged or lacking expression but to still make it look like it was a face was an oddly complicated thing to do. In completion it still isn’t accurate or have the desired look I created whilst sketching in my visual diary. Her eyebrows are an odd shade, her eyes look false and dint like up, her nose isn’t even realistic or have nostrils, and her mouth doesn’t have appropriate shading or shape. Overall it did end up with a staged look and is almost demented.