DUALITIES
Problem: Design and complete a 300-square-inch painting that shows two sides of your
personality. Include at least some areas of disharmonious color, gradation, visual texture,
and transparency.
Objective: To integrate line, shape, texture, and color and create a special kind of selfportrait
Materials: Paint and illustration board
Strategy: Hard-edged painting helps to clarify design relationships and is a “safe” way to
create a polished product. A looser style of painting and the addition of collage can
become chaotic, but the results are often more personal. Choose the best strategy for the
ideas you wish to express.
This will be an extended project, and time management is essential. Try this plan of
action:
• Week 1: Bring a pencil layout of a design, using the paint-by-number style we
used to lay out the Concealing/Revealing project. If you feel confident about your
idea and direction, you can lay this out directly on illustration board. If you have a
lot of questions about your design and approach, lay it out on paper, at least in
half scale. You can refine it after the critique.
• Week 2: Paint at least 50% of the design. Extended progress report with team of
five students.
• Week 3: Completed project due.
Reading: Review Chapter 3
Timetable: 12 to 20 hours
Instructor’s Notes: The personal quality of this assignment will motivate you.
Confusing personal expression with public communication is one hazard, however.
Because the painting is personally significant, you may believe that it automatically has
significance to a wider audience. Here is a list of assessment criteria that I feel can help
clarify the importance of good composition, regardless of the content.
Criteria questions I would ask myself are:
• What do I want to say? What aspects of my
personality are being shown?
• What range of emotions have been included in the
image? Have they been conveyed in a conventional
manner (such as red for anger), or is color being
used in a more innovative way?
• In the hard-edged paintings, is the craft clean and
crisp?
• In the progress reports, did I actively contribute, or
simply sit on the sidelines as a passive observer?
• How ambitious and independent was my creative
thinking during this project?
• What did I learn about myself and others?