I'd been feeling down because I've lost some steam on my goals to exercise and eat more healthy. Then today, getting ready for church, I put on a little blush and mascara. Voila! I felt pretty. It was the boost I needed to tackle this next week and keep trying.
With this self portrait, I wanted to have a bit more refinement and work on my color. I've learned a lot in this second one. Big stuff I learned:
Simplicity over detail. Too much detail everywhere means too many focal points. A simple brush stroke is better than 5 smaller ones.
I learned about edges. Soft edges are just as important as hard ones.
I learned I need to work on a likeness which means I need to have a better underdrawing... so don't rush it.
Up close and personal.
The Critique.... It can be tough to take a hard look at one's one work, but necessary for improvement. I love getting helpful critiques from friends (most of the time), but my friends aren't always available. I guess, what I'm trying to say is cultivate the ability to critique yourself. It is a skill that will really pay off in the long run.
This is mostly for me. I like seeing the improvement from my first portrait to my second.... it makes me feel good. hahaha!
So having never finished a real portrait before, I'm pretty excited!! Since I was feeling stuck on my black and white portrait of my sister, I thought I'd test stuff out with a small, rough, self portrait. I know it's not great, but I'm learning a ton about color and direction of brush strokes.
8 x 10 inches
The nice thing about self portraits is that I don't cost anything to model and if I wiggle, its my fault! I can see why Rembrandt and Van Gogh did a lot of self portraits. It was cheap and easy. All you need is a mirror and decent lighting.
Ugly Underpainting
I stumbled across this video in my online perusings and I've watched it about 3 times now and it helped a lot when I was doing this painting. Also, Prof. Bodily was in my head a lot with "drawing the envelope" and "angles, angles, angles." Hahaha! Crazy how professors get in your head!!
I am an illustrator, bookbinder, painter, doodler, list-maker, and wife. I love food. I am what can be categorized as a dabbler. I love trying new things, but I always come back around to art and illustration. I just can't help it.
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