Dinner Bell

Supper Time

          Diego Velasquez was a famous Spanish painter. He was the oldest of six children. He grew up in Seville; his kitchen scenes were paintings to show appreciation to those who work hard and to represent the way life was in Seville, in the kitchens. He painted a lot of religious pictures using oil paints. Almost all of his paintings have religious themes to them.
Once I was able to understand where Diego Velasquez came form, I could search for objects to be replaced.
The first preference of the portrait was mediocre. I liked the way he drew the portrait but I though he used way to much repetition. He had to many kitchen appliances. So the first thing I did was get rid of the napkin and the water pot. When doing research I found at that Diego was religious and so am I. After growing up hearing about the Bible it was very obvious what replacement objects to look for. A kitchen scene based of B.C. time period, a few things came to mind, fish, bread, carpentry, oils and spices. I decided that the fish would be an excellent choice. After placing the fish in the middle of the portrait I immediately added a grain texture to it, and lightly dimmed its quality, making the fish appear as it would if originally drawn. Then I added a knife set, because she can’t cook in a kitchen without utensils.
The Dramatic Irony and emotion that Velasquez put in his portrait was neat. The idea of using oil paints was a great texture for the theme.
There was a little racism with the black woman as the cook. I searched and found Velasquez other Kitchen Scenes; a majority of them had white people eating at the table. This was no surprise to me though seeing how the time period of the picture was back when racism was still a problem. The Portrait was very well done with a strong history rooted theme. The difference of Racism and Religion battling each other is a crafty theme, and I enjoyed studying DiegoVelasquez.

-Cody Streeter