1. Done by: Ashley Teacher: Ms. Eilidh MYP 11
E-Portfolio - Art
Done by: Ashley
Teacher: Ms. Eilidh
MYP 11

2. Criteria Marks Name: Teacher’s Name:
Ashley Liew Li Ann Ms. Eley Eilidh
Criteria A (Knowing and Understanding): Criteria B (Developing Skills): Criteria C (Thinking Creatively): Criteria D (Responding): IB Grade:

3. Criterion A: Knowing and Understanding
Harmen Steenwyck
Baroque artist from the 1600’s and known to be one of the best still life painters in his time.
Taught by his uncle, David Bailly, who became his inspiration towards vanitas still life paintings.
Vanitas A type of genre that portrays to viewers to be careful about their greed on wealth as it could obstruct their way in life.
One of his vanitas painting is called ‘An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life’
His technique is of painting on a primed and sanded oak panel as well as using glazes of oil paint to create textures.
The painting was to symbolise that the amount of wealth does not matter to a person after death.
The skull represents death while the other items such as the books, (education/ knowledge) silk (physical luxury) and the shell (a collector’s item) represent wealth in various ways.

4. Still Life
Can be created with a variety of mediums and on a multitude of surfaces.
Paintings or drawings using items that have no sentience or life.
Symbolism can be placed inside the composition and the process of creating the still life.
Acrylic
Oil Paints
Charcoal
Pastels
Water Colours
Colour Pencils
Tonal values, shadows & light and colours are able to give emotion and/ or meaning to the artwork.
Objects are able to give a representation of a concept or emotion.
Canvas
Oak Panels
Newspapers
Each still life artwork contains the artist’s perception to a situation.
Certain fruits such as apples and oranges represent (respectively) sinful wishes and the freedom of choice.
Different techniques can be used for still life as well.
Dry Brush
Collage
Glazing
Washing
Airbrushing
Drip Painting

5. Still Life Artwork [Composition]
My composition for my still life experimentation and final canvas work consists of:
Fruits (Apples & Oranges)
A laptop
Gambling Objects (Cards, a pair of die with snake’s eyes, and a playing board)
Books
The concept behind this composition was of gambling addictions and to a smaller extent, internet addiction.
This is represented in the laptop, fruits and cards behind on top of the books, suppressing knowledge.
The frame seen in the picture is to create a border for the composition to be in.
This composition for my still life experimentation was created using:
Charcoal
Acrylic
Oil Pastels
Water Colours

6. Criterion B: Developing Skills
Charcoal Experimentation
Colour Pencil Experimentation
Oil Pastels Experimentation
Acrylic Experimentation
As seen here, these are the experimentations that I have done before the drawing out the final composition on canvas using charcoal.

7. Experimentations
Out of the four experimentations that I have done, I prefer two experimentations, that being the charcoal and the colour pencil experimentations.
My reason for preferring the charcoal was because of the effect that it had created, and how easily the shadows can be drawn and manipulated out. Despite it being my first attempt at using charcoal, I felt that I had done a decent job.
As for the colour pencil experimentation, though it lacked solid colour (there was still white) I liked how the colours blended together.

8. Experimentation vs. Final on Canvas
Final Canvas Work
The reason for choosing charcoal as my final medium for canvas was due to the charcoal having a familiarity of a pencil, which I prefer compare to painting, which I lack certain skills for.
Comparing my experimentation to my canvas, my experimentation lacks defined edges and has smudges over certain areas. However, in my canvas work, I lacked the highlights of shadow and light. The canvas painting also contained unnecessary smudges.

9. Criterion C: Thinking Creatively
As stated in the previous slides, this composition holds the concept of addiction to gambling and the internet (on a smaller extent.) The laptop is to represent the addiction of the Web, or of gambling as seen by the cards on screen. The cards, pair of dice and playing board add onto the addiction of gambling. The pair of die, shows ‘snake’s eyes’ which represent loss through gambling. The apple represents the sins of gambling. However, the orange on the laptop symbolises the freedom of choice to choose gambling. The books are there to show the suppression of knowledge.

10. Symbolism of An Artist’s Still Life
Taking for example, again, Harmen Steenwyck’s ‘An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life’. The objects in the picture, save for the skull, represents the vanitas of the painting, which is a message to tell viewers to be careful with wealth, for their greed could cause obstructions in their life.
The objects, such as the silk, represents a physical luxury, while the seashell is of a collector’s item, which represents rarity. Other items such as the flute, books and pot of oil share a similar symbolism. The only item that presents itself differently is of the skull, which means death, showing that wealth does not mean much in the face of death. The light is positioned in such a way that it focuses on the skull while the shadows shroud the other items.

11. Criterion D: Responding
At the end of this assessment, I believe that I had made quite a number of mistakes in my experimentation, one of them being no clear highlight of the shadows and lighting, making it difficult to identify the source of light. To add on to that, there were a number of smudges that I didn’t mean to make, due to my hand pressing on the canvas.
I supposed that had I practiced on charcoal techniques and be wary of the effect that it would have on canvas, I would have possibly avoided these mistakes.

12. Reflection of Semester 1
In this semester, we had learnt of the different types of mediums before beginning on the experimentation of them based on the composition that we had made ourselves. Before that, we had also learnt of the ways to manipulate light and shadows in our artworks with the use of techniques. The four mediums that were used in my experimentation were charcoal, acrylic, oil pastels and water colours.
And in this quarter, we did our composition and chosen our final medium for it. Along with that, we learnt of two techniques when doing art, that being the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio, one of which we had implemented into our canvas work.
This semester has been a rather interesting one, with a lot of topics learnt from it, all of which being very useful. It was a unit where I managed to use a multitude of mediums to create still life. Pretty eventful.

13. References
[1] Arty Factory. "Harmen Steenwyck - Vanitas Still Life Painting." Arty Factory. Arty Factory, n.d. Web. 20 Nov