Starting my self-portrait consisted of gaining an understanding for facial expressions, which led to me finding multiple inspirations for the creation of my self portrait. Starting off, I fell for the serenity that the woman's face expressed in Leonardo Da Vinci's Head of Women, or La Scapigliata. The angle in which her face is turned makes it seem like she had been trying to avoid direct eye-contact, also giving her a seemingly shy personality. However, she seems positive in this piece. The brush strokes of this piece almost seem rugged, but I like how they seem to glide across the wood. The detail of the face in comparison to the other aspects of the piece like her hair, shoulders, and the background is extreme, as the face is the focus of this piece. The other portrait that had inspired me was Frida Kahlo's Self Portrait II. This piece shows a deeper, serious meaning, not only within her facial expression. Blood is dripping from her necklace, which appears to be barbed wire. There are also thorns in the background of the gloomy sky. Her earrings are also supposedly from Dr. Eloesser, in which she dedicated the piece to. I admire the contrast between her face and the gloomy background, in which her face is more of a highlighted portion within the piece. More inspiration that I had taken from this piece was the arrangement of flowers within her hair. I wanted to show her suppressed pain in my piece, but only through facial expression. The face in my piece would also be more prominent than the background. |
Leonardo Da Vinci. Head of Woman, 1508. Oil, earth, and white lead pigments on poplar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York.
Frida Kahlo. Self Portrait II, Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser, 1940. Oil on masonite. Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico.
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As I had been searching for portraits that would light up my inspiration, I decided to sketch out the chosen portraits just to look at them side to side, and see if I could keep some of the same aspects, or cut out some unnecessary features. I also took note of the meanings of each of the pieces, and tried to create my own meaning, |
I had been unsure of the type of facial expression that I wanted to use, because there were so many feelings to convey. I experimented by taking TONS of photos of myself with different expressions, even in different lighting. I ended up goofing around most of the time which gave me about 200 rough photos to sort through. This was probably my favorite part of planning my piece as I got creative, and I got a feel for what I wanted to convey through my piece. |
Stretching the canvas was the first step of creating my piece, and I did this by snapping four 3ft pieces of wooden frame together, then taking a triangle square to measure out the 90 degree angles. I placed the 90 degree angle of the triangle square into each corner, to make sure that they were even, making a perfect square.
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Once the frame was put together, it was time to stretch the canvas material onto the frame. I rolled out the canvas and placed my frame staple-side up on top of the material. I left about five inches of material loose on each edge, to ensure that I had enough canvas material. Then I folded the canvas over the edge of one side, and stretched the canvas so that it would not be too tight nor loose. I stapled the canvas to the frame about six times on each side. I repeated this process for the remaining three sides. |
The corners also needed to be folded, not to bulge out nor cause a fold on the outer corners of the frame. I stapled the corners down about eight times. Once again, if there had been loose staples, I lightly hammered them down. Once everything was stapled down, I cut off the excess materials and discarded them. |
Once my canvas was stretched, I used Trueflow white acrylic gesso to smooth out the material. I put two layers over the canvas, to ensure that my acrylic paints would be applied in a smooth manner. Once the gesso had dried, I put a grid on my canvas that would be in proportion with the grid that had been placed over my digital image. |
I free handed my image onto the canvas in reference of each square of my digital image. I prefer free-handing, but I feel it would've been a better idea to project my image onto the canvas, to be more precise. My face could've been more symmetrical and not as elongated if I was more precise in my sketching method. |
I started my painting by working with my skin tones and the shadow, as I knew it was going to take the longest amount of time and focus. I used the medium mop to fill in portions of my face, and I used the medium & large filbert brush to blend these tones together. This part required a lot of blending, which I don't have much skill for. If I took a couple more days on this piece, I could've made the tones softer, and not as bright and sharp. The dried acrylic tones happened to have more contrast than the wet acrylic, which had been closer to my actual skin tone. The colors that I had used for my base, blush, and highlights consisted of cadmium red, cadmium yellow, and titanium white. I added raw umber to my shadow tones.
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Once I had dealt with the blending and coloration problems with my body, I worked with smaller details like my eyes & eyebrows, lips, and hair. These aspects didn't require much blending, but I did mix multiple hues for painting with my original bases. For my hair, I used the same formula as my shadows, but adding more cadmium red. I also added more white to my hair tone to create my natural highlights. I lightly brushed the highlight tone into my hair flow with a small bright brush. I used the small and medium mop for many other small details, like the flowers in my hair.
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The last part of my portrait that I focused on was the background. I made the background simple by separating the bright part of my piece with titanium white, and the shadow area of my piece with mars black. I filled in these areas with a large angle brush, since no blending needed to take place. I relied on the background to express my idea of light shining through the darkness. This completed my piece. |
Leonardo Da Vinci. Head of Woman, 1508. Oil, earth, and white lead pigments on poplar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York.
Frida Kahlo. Self Portrait II, Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser, 1940. Oil on masonite. Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico.
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Critique
This piece took a lot of my time and energy, but I also feel like I could've improved it more. I feel that this piece could've been more realistic if I could've worked more with my shadowing, so that my face wouldn't look as muddy as it does. Using a projector would've also been a more wise decision, as my facial features would've been more realistic. My nose is very elongated, and my eyes both different sizes, which they were not in my inspiration photo. These are just improvements that I can make in the future. I was satisfied with my use of color, and although I had felt uncomfortable with my blending abilities, it didn't turn out horribly. Overall, this piece had it's flaws, but I feel that I look somewhat similar to the final outcome. |