Exhibition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Having never done a self portrait of myself before, this painting has a special place in my heart. I have never had to look at my face for such a long period of time at once before. Taking inspiration from Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s self portrait I was able to put my own thoughts on a canvas. The left side is a broken, unfinished version of me, and the right to be what I put out into the world, over glorified, and a lot of fixing to my looks. Process/ Experimentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first thing I did obviously was sketch out my plan. At first I wanted to I have my idea of a little bit more obvious what I ended up with, because at first I wanted the part that was going to be on a canvas to be all pristine, and the part of me painting on the canvas to be a total mess and that would be my symbolism, but then I thought about how that wasn't really true to the original painting so I decided to go away with that idea and change my idea little bit more to having chunks of my face taken out for the part that's going to be on the canvas. So then I took a few pictures of myself in the pose that I wanted to paint and obviously I couldn't really do the canvas part of that so I had to do that in edit. After I was done with all my planning I went to the canvas and sketched out a rough draft of what my painting was going to look like. Then I went into even more detail starting with the dress because I find drawing cloth pretty easy so I wanted to get that out of the way. Then I did the hand which I had to look at a bunch of different pictures to get the right shape, I would say it's a little bit small but I'm still happy with it and I didn't change it after that. I started to freehand the face and at first I thought it looked fine. After that I went on to sketch the face. I did a rough draft of what the face was going to look like, like I did the shape of my head. and I kept going back and forth with not liking what I had and redoing it to the point where the charcoal on my canvas was starting to stain ( because I was using charcoal to draw so I could easily erase) so I had to put white paint over it so I could start again. especially with the lips. I then remembered a method of putting a thin piece of paper over a screen and tracing what's on the screen, so I finally decided to do that. But even doing that for some reason it took me a lot of tries to make it look right. I then looked back at the face that I had free hand drawn and was not happy with it and I kept trying to meddle with it. After a few tries it looked like an alien. I decided to use the method that I did the other face and trace a picture of mine. After that it did end up looking better, obviously because it was a trace drawing. |
Inspiration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I took total inspiration from Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s self portrait. I wanted to use her color palette, her texture, her pose, just everything. I wanted to see what the painting would look like if she were to paint me. First off, I love her color palette. I liked how it looked dark, and in a way, monotone, but then you can see that strong red of her ribbon just standing out. That was actually the first thing I noticed when I saw the painting. I also wanted to capture the yellow tinted light that was shining on her face, so in editing, I had to change the hue of my face to look yellow, rather than the white light in my room. As for texture, I can't tell what she used to get that pixel-like texture on her painting, or whether it was due to the painting being old or not. All I know is that I thought it looked, for lack of better words, really cool. In Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s self portrait, the painting in the painting looked as if Elisabeth was not smiling, however in the part of the painting where it looks like she is painting, it seems like she is smiling and just kind of having a good time. The way i saw this is that the canvas part of the painting is what she puts out into the world, and the other part is her true self. So seeing that, I wanted to do that in my painting, but in the complete opposite way. I wanted the canvas part of the painting to be a broken down version of myself, and then the right side of the painting being an over glorified version of myself. The overall image looks as if I'm trying to fix myself in a painting. Process / Experimentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To start off the painting I first obviously had to mix my colors and I started off with a paintbrush doing the back, but I wasn't able to get the texture I wanted, I even tried stippling the brush and it wasn't working. So then I scrounged around my room and found a sponge. I tried using that on the area and it worked out perfectly. Actually throughout this project I found my absolute love for sponges. After I was done with one side of my head I moved on to the back. I used to tape around the border of my head and hair so I wouldn't get paint where it's not supposed to go yet. Then I moved on to the drawing of a canvas part of my painting. I tried the same method with a sponge and it worked out beautifully. Using the sponge though I would have to do a few first stipples on the palate so that it wasn't so harsh on the painting. I became very lazy and did not want to use my palette to get the first couple of stipples of paint on, so I ended up using my hand. I also ended up losing the sponge I was using before, so I got a dish sponge ripped up and used it ( we went to the dollar store and got a new one, I didn't use the same one we used on the dishes). After I was done with that part of the painting I moved on to the hair. First I just used a base coat of brown over my hair just to get the color on there and then I did some highlighting. When I was done with the hair I moved on to the ribbon on the dress. and doing some more detail in the dress itself, because I left white spaces in the dress where I knew the most prevalent Shadows were going to be. When I was done with all of that I did the faces, the hand, the palate, and the shadowed part underneath the canvas. Looking at the painting that I was inspired by I saw that it was mostly pretty much just one color, and some shadows, so I tried to do that with mine. All though mine kind of looks really plain, so I might add some detail later. I also ended up getting completely rid of the nose on the face on the left, because I felt like only removing one thing, the eye was not enough. I also just really have a hard time with noses, because it's a lot of Shadows and highlights. The hand was surprisingly easy. all I had to do was use my base coat for my skin color, and a few Shadows were the knuckles and in between my fingers were. |
After looking at the painting for a few months, I knew that I had some changes that I needed to complete in order for me to be satisfied with the peace. A few things that stuck out were that I needed to fix the face, it looked too dull and I wanted to brighten it up a little bit and make it more lively, and I needed to fix the clothes by adding more dimensions into them, same with the hair. I also needed to fix almost everything about the other half of the painting with the “ unfinished” version of myself. again it just looked too dull and I wanted it to be more lively. The first thing I did, because I wanted to get the easiest part out of the way, was fix the fabric in my dress that I painted. looking at it at first, I saw it was okay but the more I looked at it the more I realized it definitely needed more shadows and highlights throughout it so that's what I want to do first. I used straight black out of the tube to get the shadows of the ribbon on the dress, because I wanted a high contrast in the highlights. Originally I was going to add in some highlights on that ribbon, however after seeing the straight black on it, I really liked the way it looked. I was satisfied with the shadows and I believe that the somewhat highlight that I had already put into it gave it enough dimension. for the dress itself I added highlights as well as shadows. Everything was way too monotone, and although my inspiration piece didn't have a huge contrast in the shadows and highlights, that was something that I wanted to differ from it. For the highlights I took mainly white and added a little bit of my blue color, and for the shadows I used black with a tiny bit of the blue. for whatever reason I wanted the main darkness to come from the ribbon, and I didn't want the dress to be a distraction from the ribbon. Because I didn't do the white flares that my inspiration piece has on the dress, I wanted to accentuate the detail that I went into with the ribbon to compensate for it. |
Next I went into the hair. looking back on it I think I went a little overboard with the highlights on the hair. however with that being said I do still really like how it came out. it accentuates the texture of the hair, it adds to the idea of this version of myself being a very over glorified version, with every little piece of it being polished.The original hair is basically just two colors of brown with it looking like it's just blocked out what is zero dimension in it at all. it doesn't look like there are any separate hair strands in it at all. make the hair I used a little bit of white and black for the highlights and shadows. When I originally painted this piece I had brown hair, however when I went to retouch this piece, I had black hair. I was going to stick with the brown hair however the inspiration photos that I took of myself weren't very clear and didn't show much detail. I also wanted it to represent the new me. But black hair is very difficult, I had to use a lot of different light angles on my hair to see how it reflects it.
In order to redo the face and make it look more lively in glam, I added a lot more acrylic extender in my paint to make it thicker as well as add shine to it due to the type that I had. originally to paint the face I used a paint brush with a swiping motion, as well as having the intention of making the face pretty dull in color, however in retouching the painting I changed my mind and I went with a sibling method with a sponge, as well as wanting to make it more glam and with more highlights and shadows throughout the face. I also wanted to add my freckles on to this painting because I realized I didn't really add my freckles to the original painting, most likely due to the fact that I did not want to have the possibility of messing it up. but after creating my face, it was missing my freckles and I took the extreme risk of messing everything up and added the freckles and I am very happy that I did that. I did add a few more extra freckles than I actually have, again trying to accentuate my features.
In recreating the face I realized that I painted my lips entirely wrong. they were too low as well as too small and the angle was off, as well as the color; everything that I painted for the lips was just incorrect. to fix this I did a quick sketch over the painting of my lip shape, and then I matched the lips closer to what my left color looks like with a little bit of lipstick. I did make my lips a little bit more rounds and they actually are, but again the idea was to accentuate all of my features. In painting the face I was also able to bring life into the painting by making my eyes look more realistic, granted they're not perfect but they are a lot better than what they were. I made them a little bit more doll I'd but still true to the basic shape of my eye. My eye colors are very difficult to pinpoint because there are multiple colors within my eye, so I went with just a dark greenish blue. I figured I didn't need to get the eye colors exactly because no one is really going to be looking that close into them, also from further away people's eyes usually look a little bit darker anyway.
In order to redo the face and make it look more lively in glam, I added a lot more acrylic extender in my paint to make it thicker as well as add shine to it due to the type that I had. originally to paint the face I used a paint brush with a swiping motion, as well as having the intention of making the face pretty dull in color, however in retouching the painting I changed my mind and I went with a sibling method with a sponge, as well as wanting to make it more glam and with more highlights and shadows throughout the face. I also wanted to add my freckles on to this painting because I realized I didn't really add my freckles to the original painting, most likely due to the fact that I did not want to have the possibility of messing it up. but after creating my face, it was missing my freckles and I took the extreme risk of messing everything up and added the freckles and I am very happy that I did that. I did add a few more extra freckles than I actually have, again trying to accentuate my features.
In recreating the face I realized that I painted my lips entirely wrong. they were too low as well as too small and the angle was off, as well as the color; everything that I painted for the lips was just incorrect. to fix this I did a quick sketch over the painting of my lip shape, and then I matched the lips closer to what my left color looks like with a little bit of lipstick. I did make my lips a little bit more rounds and they actually are, but again the idea was to accentuate all of my features. In painting the face I was also able to bring life into the painting by making my eyes look more realistic, granted they're not perfect but they are a lot better than what they were. I made them a little bit more doll I'd but still true to the basic shape of my eye. My eye colors are very difficult to pinpoint because there are multiple colors within my eye, so I went with just a dark greenish blue. I figured I didn't need to get the eye colors exactly because no one is really going to be looking that close into them, also from further away people's eyes usually look a little bit darker anyway.
Reflection
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Overall I'm okay with the painting right now. Though I might do some detail changing later on. I do wish I was able to get a little bit closer to the overall tone of the inspiration painting. Because hers seems a little darker than mine. I probably wouldn't have changed any of my process really other than may be practicing drawing my face more. I thought that having seen my face multiple times a day, I thought that part would be easy but apparently not.
After totally fixing the painting I am completely satisfied with how it turned out. I am really happy I was able to weigh more details and take my time a lot more with it. I love what I did with the faces, being able to make them look more realistic and Lively. I love the detail they'll be going to with the dress and the ribbon with more shadowing. And the overall look of the painting just feels a lot more live and detailed.
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Overall I'm okay with the painting right now. Though I might do some detail changing later on. I do wish I was able to get a little bit closer to the overall tone of the inspiration painting. Because hers seems a little darker than mine. I probably wouldn't have changed any of my process really other than may be practicing drawing my face more. I thought that having seen my face multiple times a day, I thought that part would be easy but apparently not.
After totally fixing the painting I am completely satisfied with how it turned out. I am really happy I was able to weigh more details and take my time a lot more with it. I love what I did with the faces, being able to make them look more realistic and Lively. I love the detail they'll be going to with the dress and the ribbon with more shadowing. And the overall look of the painting just feels a lot more live and detailed.