Enigma
|
Artist Inspiration
This piece was inspired by Pop Art. The artist that I chose to base my self-portrait off was Roy Lichtenstein. Some of his creations(to the right) had a small part in my piece; The sun's ray, yellow background, the emotions, and cartoonist style. I enjoyed how Lichtenstein created his pieces because they all seemed really clean and beautiful. They also told a story and background to his characters despite it only having a minimal amount of characters in the center.
|
|
PlanningI started by viewing some art movements that I studied in sophomore year. At first, I was going to pick baroque style and choose either Bernini,or Caravaggio, or Rembrandt as reference. Then I started look at Art Nouveau artist Mucha, but I then still came back to baroque. However, I was more inspired by Lichtenstein, I felt that I could relate more to the art movement than the other movements I chose previously. Then, I started to sketch possible poses that I could paint. I sketched myself smiling, in side profile, holding those old phones up to my ear with only my face to cover the canvas and another sketch with half of my body showing. I didn't like these sketches so I sketched myself serious with neck shackles. The final idea really interested me so I recreated it in a picture that I took of myself.
|
BrainstormUseful Websites
|
Process
- Drew a grid onto the canvas.
- Started drawing my photo on the canvas.
- Mixed colors in order to have my skin color. After, I had the skin tone, I painted the face's skin.
- Then, I started to create the facial features: eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, and birthmark.
- I outlined my facial features with black acrylic paint.
- Half of the background was painted with black and the other half was painted yellow.
- I then painted yellow lines onto the black background and black lines onto the yellow background.
- The base of the neck shackles were added.
- The shirt was painted with lightish gray.
- My hair was painted a dark brown.
- Finally, the rest of the neck shackles were added.
Meaning of Piece
The meaning of this piece is to portray my different faces and emotions. People see me as someone who is quiet, smart (though I don't think I am), and serious (probably snobby?), however, they don't know what lies within me. I tend to not show who I really am because I'm afraid that society and would judge me. However, at home I am goofy, weird, talkative, and entertaining. The neck shackles represent how society controls me and keeps me captive. The yellow is the energy within me and the black is mystery (how people see me), the gray is being indifferent about life which leads to me to isolate myself from others. My self-confidence also plays a big role as to why I keep to myself because I get embarrassed if people see me showing who I really am. I have tried to be myself and not change how I act around people, but it is hard. Later on my life, I know that these shackles will be broken and I won't care what society thinks of me anymore.
Reflection
At the beginning of this project, the thought of creating a canvas by myself, scared me since it was my first doing so. Not only that, but the size of the canvas and painting a huge portrait of myself, when I'm not even confident enough, made it more difficult to complete. My head was also blank on what artist I wanted to use as inspiration and what I really wanted to paint. I was so lost, but I came to find the artist that I wanted to base my piece off. When I got my idea, I began to lose fear and started to experiment with the brushes. I had struggles along the way which made it hard to complete the piece. I could get the eyes that I wanted along with the eyebrows. Also, painting in a neat and straight manner and not smudging the paint was a struggle. Difficulties weren't the only things, but also successes. I ended up with a painting that I could be proud of. I succeeded with creating the nose without redoing it again, the background went according to plan, and basically all the facial features are greatly painted. If I were to do this again, I would plan much better because I want my portrait to look nicer and better.