Tonal Portrait: Hue & Meaning

Elapsed time: 7 hours

Final Draft

Rough Concepts

For this project, I was tasked with developing either an album cover or movie poster utilizing a monochromatic color palette that reflected a fellow classmate’s personality. Upon being partnered with my classmate, it was very clear that they are a very energetic and passionate person. They enjoy being able to be energetic and thrive on working with other people. Moreover, they were bursting with a deep love and enthusiasm for their hobbies and interests. Immediately, the color orange presented itself in my mind as a proper pigment to fit their personality. Orange is often associated with enthusiasm and excitement due to its vibrancy. I felt that this symbolism properly captured my partner’s overall excitement and passion. Furthermore, the color orange can offer a comforting warmth, which I thought also captured my partner’s approachability, as they are a very easy person to converse with. Additionally, orange’s warmth is reflective of their work life, as their jobs require them to be a vibrant, welcoming person in order to succeed. As for the composition of my final painting, I felt that an album cover was the right choice for my partner as they had expressed a very intense passion for music, noting that they enjoy loud music like heavy metal and rock. I wanted to have a main centerpiece for my painting that was symbolic of my partner’s vibrant, warm energy, which I ultimately chose to be a sun. I was vaguely inspired by Sublime’s 40oz. To Freedom album, enjoying the sun as the centerpiece. I also felt that emulating this would also reinforce the idea that my painting is intending to be an album cover. I included the stars surrounding the sun to represent my partner’s burning passion for all the things that bring them joy. The stars look similar to sparkles as a reference to the idea that people’s eyes sparkle when they’re speaking passionately. Moreover, I wanted the overall look of everything to feel very textured and graphic to reference my partner’s love of scrapbooking. In fact, I finger painted the color gradient on the sun in order to achieve the textured, hand-crafted look I wanted to emulate. I titled the album Pearl, to represent the meaning of my partner’s name. Finally, to incorporate my partner’s love of metal, I stylized the album cover’s text to be representative of the stereotypical heavy metal text design.