Khanh Phan
Water Puppetry
Prompt: In this assignment, students need to create a self-portrait that show what we have learned so far in terms of using tonal values to show volume and structure as accurate as possible.
This piece of painting portrays the behind the scene of water puppetry, a form of traditional entertainment in Vietnam. During the water puppet show, the performers have to stand in the water in the backstage while using bamboo sticks to control the puppets. Therefore, what the audiences see are only the puppets. For this project, I want to honor the performers who devote themselves to this form of traditional art as well as their efforts they put into each performance in order to make Vietnamese culture become more well known. Here, I painted myself as a water puppet performer with wet hair and my body soaked into the water.