Self Portrait
Self Portrait
Made Canvas 91.44 cm x 91.44 cm December 2020 This self portrait shows my current ability and how much I have grown and learned. Painting in the Baroque-esque style was a welcomed challenge and provided a new experience. This self portrait was especially challenging for me, making me face things I didn't want to see in close detail. It was a much needed experience that has added greatly to my portfolio. |
Inspiration and Background
For my project 4, I decided to finish my self portrait that I started at the end of Junior year. For this painting I decided to use the baroque Era Style. I chose this style because I really love how dark and moody most paintings are from that time period. When I paint I generally use a impressionism-like style within my paintings, for this one I wanted to change it up. I feel like the baroque period reflected the past couple years in my life, dark and unpredictable. By unpredictable I mean I didn't know anything that happened was going to happen, I was always in the dark for the past couple years of my life. I wanted to follow and reference Johannes Vermeer's and Caravaggio's work because their work seemed in my skill level, by that I mean my ability would be better with his style of baroque, and what my goal was, even though there was no way that I was going to reach it. I really liked the tone and mood within all of their paintings focusing on the main figure and blurring or making the background so dark that you focus on that one central figure.
--- https://www.caravaggio.org/boy-with-a-basket-of-fruit.jsp https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/explore/the-collection/artworks/girl-with-a-pearl-earring-670/ |
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Process and Sketches
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For the process of this painting, as always, I stretched my three foot by three foot canvas and gessoed it with a couple layers so I would get a smoother painting surface, which did not exactly happen. I stretched and gessoed to the canvas at school then once it was dry brought it home and started working on it. Once it was home and dry, I took reference photos to sketch onto the canvas. I took many photos of myself in different poses to see which I would like better. The photo I settled on was of me very close to the camera, and when I started sketching I noticed my dog was perfectly posed in the background and I wanted to incorporate her in the painting since she is very important to me. Once I had my reference photo it was time to start sketching. I used the grid method to transfer my photo from my phone onto the canvas, I made many, many one inch by one inch squares over the entire canvas in a brown colored pencil so it would blend better with the paint.
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Once I had all the grids I put the photo in an app I have on my phone that makes matching grids over the entire image, then I just transferred the image Square by square. After a very long time, I believe it was about a week, I began to paint. I started by painting the main contours and highlights of my face laying whites and lightish browns over those areas to blend over later. I then went and focused on the eyes of the painting. By that I mixed paint to match my skin tone then painted my eyelids matching it as closely as I could to the painting. Then I moved on to my eyeballs, painting the irises and cornea then filling with a light gray to white around that . With everything I started with basic colors and layered over that later blending with that base color. I repeated the process for the eyes, and eyelids, over the rest of my face. I moved from my eyes to my nose, which was the most difficult part, then to my mouth, cheeks and forehead. Once I had a base layer for my face done it was time to start blending and adding detail. I started by filling out the darker areas of my face and the shadows then taking lighter skin tone shades and whites and blending that together to match the shade and contour of my face as best as I could. the face took many, many tries and I eventually got it to a point where I was okay with it. Once I was done with the face I moved to my hair which at the time I had brown hair with natural blondish highlights. I started again with a bass layer and added depth and detail to the hair once the base was down. I started with lowlights and shades, then moved to the highlights and detail and texture of my hair. Since I was working on the hair I decided to do the bandana I was wearing right away as well. For that I mixed a bright blue, a little black, light gray and some white to match my bandana as best as I could, the bandana was a denim that had different shades since it was worn and torn so much. once I had my face hair and bandana done I worked on my neck and arms which is the same process for my face, adding the base shadows and contours, then highlights and blending to match as well as I could.
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Once I had all of my skin done I decided to paint my shirt and overalls, which was very simple I used a brown for my shirt which matched perfectly, stippled with a dry paint brush some light blue and yellow to match the faded image on the shirt that you could see, then painted my overalls a very dark green and went over that with blue and black details and shading. Once I was complete I moved on to working on my dog, which was much simpler than painting myself I started by again a base layer of brown then adding her fur details, I did her face first painting her eyes and her snout as best as I could then moved to what you could see of her body. In my reference photo she is laying on a green blanket but to match my paintings theme I moved her to a red puffy pillow. I then after myself and Nova were complete, I painted the entire background black, I figured this was the simplest way to achieve the baroque style that I wanted wow not taking away from the main figures in my painting.
Reflection
This painting was a challenge, to say the least. Considering we started these at the end of last semester, and I'm just finishing it now. This painting challenged me in ways that I needed to be and honestly helped with my mental image of myself. When you're forced to stare at your own face for hours everyday you move past seeing all of your imperfections and start finding your uniqueness. This painting forced me to work on blending and technique greatly, which is something that I needed to and wanted to work on. Painting in a Baroque-esque style opened my eyes to the attention to detail and how much work went into those paintings, which wasn't questioned in the first place. My painting differs greatly to my references, but takes a lot of inspiration from them. I obviously do not have as much talent and skill in painting as Caravaggio and Vermeer. Their paintings have amazing details and shadows that bring the paintings to life. Their paintings also use the background more than I did. Even though in Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring he does just have a pretty-much flat black background, he used that to his advantage and, along with lightings and shadow, he truly brought her to life and made her pop out of the frame. Caravaggio did the same, but he used much softer blending and included many more objects and details in the background than I did. My painting is a good try and impression of the Baroque period, but I still have a lot of work to do. I need to work on blending my shadows much softer and adding much more smaller details to make myself look more realistic, and not so much like a painting. Overall I'm happy with how this painting turned out and am glad I can eventually practice more in this style.
ACT Responses
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
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What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
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What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
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What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
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What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
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What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
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What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
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What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
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What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
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