A presentation about my summer project, self reflecting on year one and my plans for the future.

1. THE SUMMER
ASSIGNMENT
& YEAR ONE REVIEW
Emma Lam

2. PORT
RAIT
PAINTI
NG

3. PREPARATION:
➤ Firstly I wanted to start with the basics which was practicing drawing my face from direct observation by using a
mirror. This helped me boost my skills in accurately measuring all the facial features before drawing them in
place and by practicing would eventually lead me on to draw from different angles and compositions.
➤ For the first two portrait drawings on the left, I learnt the importance in positioning of the facial features and how
they are in proportion with the others, to help me i had used marked down guidelines with a ruler, so that I knew
roughly where to draw and could be easily erased and changed.
➤ Similarly, the two drawings on the right are also line drawings, however the layout of the portrait is different
because of wanting to experiment with composition. How I can to draw half of my face with by covering one side
of my mirror with a piece of paper, so that it was easier for me to focus on that half of my face. But the difficulty in
this was trying to mark out where the facial features were as the other side was covered up.

4. ➤ I came to choose Tai Shan Schierenberg when I saw his 38 inches x 36 inches portrait
piece of Seamus Heaney during my trip to the National Portrait Gallery. I already knew
that Heaney was a war poet, and that helped me pick out aspects of the painting which
could be linked to his past of living in a period of war: facial expression, background
colour and clothing. The reason to why I picked this portrait as my source for my
portrait was due to Schierenberg’s painting style that was very different to my own,
therefore needed to be experimented and analyses and understand his techniques.
➤ Schierenberg often uses oil paints for his portraits which is the reason for his distinctive
painting style of layering different shades and colours with hardly any blending. When
analysing his piece I came to realise that he often uses long brushstrokes that are
curved to follow the movement of the face, doing this created a ‘patchy’ abstract style
that interested and inspired me to explore this. I find that Schierenberg’s approach to
this portrait was the capture the hidden emotions of Heaney. The colour strips below
show the neutral and dark colours Schierenberg’s painting, and as shown there isn’t
must variation of colour between the two strips which creates a calm, solemn
atmosphere.
➤ "It is not until the fourth or fifth attempt at painting a subject that I feel I may have begun
to capture their real essence as people. I'm always striving for that magic moment when
paint becomes an illusion of reality."
INITIAL SOURCES:

5. ARTIST RESEARCH:
➤ Tai-Shan Schierenberg (born 1962) is an
English portrait painter, based in London. His
mother is Chinese and his father is a german
painter. He was the joint winner of the 1989
BP Portrait Award and is Head of Painting at
The Art Academy in London.
➤ Schierenberg eventually returned to London,
where he has remained ever since. He applied
to and was accepted by St. Martin's and in
due course, Slade School of Art for
postgraduate studies, which he finished in
1987.
➤ In 1989 he won joint first prize in the National
Portrait Gallery's John Player Portrait Award,
and as part of the prize, was commissioned to
paint the portrait of playwright John Mortimer
for the Gallery's collection. The National
Portrait Gallery also holds his portraits of Lord
Carrington from 1994, Lord Sainsbury 2002
and most recently Seamus Heaney from 2004.
He has also executed the commission for a
double portrait of the Royal Couple. His
paintings can be seen at Flowers East in
Hackney.

6. EXPERIMENTS AND DECISION:
➤ When choosing an artist and researching what their chosen medium is, I wanted to explore using
other mediums to understand why Tai Shan Schierenberg chose oil paints as his medium when
painting portraits. Firstly I started off exploring ink considering the style of Schierenberg, but later
realised it looked too harsh as the black ink stood out from the white paper and also he doesn’t
use much black in his paintings either. After, I tried using colouring pencils but this also failed as
it looked too soft and it was harder to layer the colours. Eventually I moved onto acrylic which the
consistency was somewhat closer to oil paint as it allowed me to layer colour over already
painted areas, also using acrylic made me explore texture and presenting the paint on the page.

7. EXPERIMENTS AND DECISIONS:
➤ This part of the process was about exploring
different ways in compositions in the style of
Schierenberg. The reason for choosing this
particular style of Schierenberg is so that i
could express a bigger variation of emotions
but using different facial expressions and
angles of the face. The second column of
pictures are works by Schierenberg which I
took inspiration from for my sketches. One
thing I found interesting was that my
portraits made eye contact ‘with the viewer’
which I thought made the sketch feel more
personal to me.
➤ By analysing Schierenberg’s work, I wanted
my work to communicate emotion through
colour. This idea was deeply inspired by the
top right image of his self portrait where the
face on the right is in the shadows
compared the face on the left who appears
to be looking towards the light. This
analysation shows that emotions doesn’t
necessary have to be expressed through
facial expressions.

8. EXPERIMENTS AND DECISIONS:
➤ From experimentations of different media I wanted to
incorporate the sketches I did previously with the medium I
chose which worked the best, acrylic. Acrylic worked best as
it related to Schierenberg’s style and overall looked like his
techniques worked better with acrylic as it was a thicker
consistency. Using watercolour and colouring pencils gave
off a very light wash of colour and I couldn’t make it opaque
enough to create layers.
➤ The top right painting shows me putting together
Schierenberg’s painting techniques followed by the layout
and composition of the faces, From the outcome I found it
easier to work on the different shades as i mixed together the
darker shades of skin tones, therefore when filling in the
areas that are lighter i just added white. There are patchesof
yellow and red that can be seen, and these were the colours
that created the skin tone. I also find that the patches/streaks
of yellow and red create movement and also compliments the
other colours.
➤ The second experimentation I wanted to try to present this
piece with a ‘messier’ look. This was achieved by using a dry
paintbrush in which when dipped in paint the bristles aren’t
sticking together, so the it’ll create nice streaks which show
the individual bristles.
➤ Overall, between the two experiments, I had preferred the
first experiment as it was sharper and clean than the second
experiment. The idea of ‘messier’ did not work as I thought it
made the piece busies.

9. THE PROCESS:
➤ The first picture on the left shows me starting to paint the
background of the canvas with acrylic paint. The reason
for painting it landscape is because my outline of the
portrait is wide but doesn’t have much height, therefore
landscape would be the ideal choice. For the background
colour I took swatches to experiment with colour, and
eventually ended up combining swatches together. The
background consists of a dark blue wash with light paint
brush streaks of black and white which create an
interesting light movement in the background.
➤ After the background is followed by the top right-hand
picture which focuses on skin tones. It was important to
test the colour after mixing, to see if the colour mixed
would appear the same on canvas. In order to emphasise
the brush strokes, I used a wider brush tip to focus
attention on the different skin tones used. I found this part
of the process the hardest due to having to mix several
shades of the same colour from scratch.
➤ Eventually, I moved on to the hair, eyebrows and eyes.
These areas were the darkest, so painting it after the light
colours was the best choice. I found this part slightly
difficult as my hair is dark, there wasn’t much variation of
shades so i couldn’t layer the paint as much as I wanted
to. Looking back, I would have liked to add more
dimension to these areas by adding lighter tones.

10. FINAL OUTCOME:
➤ For the final outcome of my self portrait, I find that the theme of
hidden emotion through colour was successfully achieved due to
numerous experiments and self feedback. Another thing which
helped me achieve the outcome was the visits to the National
Portrait Gallery and also artist research helped me analyse
Schierenberg’s painting techniques and the layout of his portraits. I
now have a greater understanding of Schierenberg’s methods and
reasonings for his style.
➤ Specific parts of the project that I enjoyed was the artist research
due to experimenting with the way he paints and his style. My style
of painting is unlike Schierenberg’s which i found interesting to
adapt my painting style to his. One thing I learnt from my chosen
artist is the fact that blending both traditional painting style with
abstract painting methods that was used from the 1940’s shows an
interesting contrast. A thing about Schirenberg’s style that I’ll like
to use in the future portraits would be the fact of using other
different colours apart from skintones, because I found the
outcome when experimenting very amusing.
➤ On the other hand, a thing i would have liked to change would be
the way I had painted the skin, so that I added the blue with the
skin toned painted to make it look as if the skin contained the light
streaks of blue.

11. REFLEC
TING
ON
YEAR
ONE

12. SUMMATIVE PROJECT
➤ This project was important to me because it made me think
about the art through time, the development of it and
how/what it was presented on. For example, I explored
Chinese, Greek and Aztec art the reasoning being was so
that I could combine all three art styles. Therefore, to be able
to combine the three together I would have to analyse
individually and be able to tell would makes them significant
from each other.
➤ I also found making a 3D model inspired by our chosen
location The British Museum very useful because it made me
review what areas of the museum I found interesting and
what I would like to look into more. The 3D model consisted
of the observational drawings that I had drawn during the trip
to the museum and using material with different texture and
colour to represent what I had seen and wanted my viewer to
feel.
➤ This project also made me realise the importance in artist
research and being inspired by the techniques they use in
order to experiment with them and try to incorporate them
into my own work. For example, in this project my chosen
artist was a contemporary sculptor, Li Lihong, who used
traditional Chinese aesthetics and materials with
contemporary iconography. His porcelain sculptures mimic
the shapes of recognisable brand logos. The implication is
clear: Western businesses has become integrated into
Chinese culture.

13. SUMMATIVE PROJECT
➤ Through this project I found creating mood boards for my target
audience important as it allowed me develop ideas and also get an
idea of what appeals to my target audience so that use my
research to create a product that appeals to them.
➤ Experimenting using different techniques also broadened the
variation of material I could potentially have used for the final
product, but as a result I found this a good experience and could
always use these methods in future projects.

14. SUMMATIVE PROJECT
➤ Another aspect of the project I found
important was to always keeping track of the
process and always writing my feedback on it
so that I could avoid it next time in the future.
This part of the process shows how i’m able
to make decisions that benefit my target
audience and work independently.
➤ I came to learn that showing my develop
throughout my sketchbook was one of my
strengths followed by writing the reasons for
making specific choices in the process.

15. UNIT 75
➤ I found gaining skills to help with my measured drawings very important and useful through the duration
of the project as it allowed me to recreate artist’s paintings and also applied it to observation drawing
during my life drawing sessions. When recreating a piece, one way of accurately measuring is to draw a
grid on both sketch and artwork so that each square can be slowly accurately filled in. During life
drawing sessions and portrait drawing, a technique I learnt to measure proportion of the human
figure/face by using a pencil. I found this technique very useful, especially wanting to figure out an angle
of certain body part e.g arms, legs.

16. UNIT 75
➤ I found this part of Unit 75 important for future projects as it made me understand
the medium I was applying and the different ways I could apply it onto paper. The
experimentation of ink went from applying it with a paintbrush, with card and also
with a willow stick. The different applications with the ink created different textures
which I then was able to develop and incorporate into my final portrait.
➤ I also found understanding an artist’s style very useful when trying to merge both
Pollock’s and Kokoschka’s styles and techniques for my portrait. For this project, I
was able to make use of Pollock’s medium, ink, and Kokoschka’s drawing style
which was shaded in ‘blocks’.

17. UNIT 75
➤ When looking back, one
thing I would change would
be to analyse the
movement of Kokoschka’s
pencil drawings. If I had
done this, then I would
have reconsidered the
direction of the hair, and
would change it from
horizontal blocks to vertical
as the direction of hair
moved downwards.

18. PLANS
FOR
THE
FUTUR

19. FUTURE PLAN
➤ Last year, I was unsure what my strengths and weaknesses were therefore was indecisive
what I wanted to do after college. However, working through these projects have made me
find my strengths and weaknesses from researching to development to creating the final
outcome.
➤ My current progression aim is go to university and i’m considering to achieve a degree in
the area of fashion. The qualities I would need to achieve this would be to always show
development and have reasonings for my choices and also being open minded and
handling my time is also a skill I would have to have. How i’ll develop and build towards my
second year would be to surround my projects around the idea of fashion, so that can
experiment with different techniques and methods
➤ This year I have been to many university shows and open days, which have helped me
gained information about certain courses and their facilities. A few months ago I attended
the New Designers Show where many students who have just graduated with their
universities come together to present their work. The New Designers show was split into
two categories, and I went to the fashion and textile show. This enabled me to speak to
many different students who have came from different universities and therefore could
compare their experiences and the facilities that was available for them.