Painting: Self Portrait #2

Well, the double square self portrait I did this year is finished. You can see the first one at my dA account. (Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that one won best of show. Maybe I should do a post about that?!)



I don't think this one is really great, but I only had two days to get it done. Yeah, it was my fault, but I wanted the concept to be perfect and setting up this concept was difficult and so at the end I only had two days. I think it was worth it though.

Ok, so the idea is 'me painting me painting me' and I think it works pretty well. I had to set up two mirrors, and there were two poses and for one head I had to use a photograph, though I don't like doing that. I like painting from life, even if I have to really do some juggling to get it. I couldn't quite work it out, and because I only had two days, I just used a black and white photo of my head. That way I wouldn't be tempted to use the colors in the photo.

The spot light is pretty obvious, though it may not be obvious that I tried to use a diffused blue light on my back so there is actually some definition to all the stuff back there. I think I got the light pretty right, but I think I'm going to go back and fix the hands on 'the real me' because I wanted fingers, but I had to throw them in cuz of time limits.

The colors were fun. Nothing is just one color. There are oranges in the blue, purples in the reds, indigos everywhere, and cad red light is peaking through everything. Last time I tried to do a simplified palette. This time I tried every color imaginable, or so it seemed. And a lot of them were bright, modern colors that I had fun toning down and mixing. I loved it. The only new color was indigo, and I bought it to make myself happy. I ended up using it a lot because I just loved how it mixed with the zinc yellow to make green, and plus, it gave me a rich blue in the background that was perfectly dark and shadowy. I had permanent (ultramarine), Prussian, indigo, thalo, cobalt and cerulean blues; alizarin, venetian, cad red lt, cad red med, cad red dk, rose madder, burnt sienna, burnt umber, and a modern red I can't remember the name of. For yellows I had ocher, cad yellow lt, cad yellow med, and cad yellow deep, Naples, zinc and raw sienna. I also had a handful of greens, purples, and earth tones that were helpful, and modern colors that were just fun. The toned ground of the canvas my painting is painting was done with cad yellow deep, cad red light, indigo, and yellow ocher. It worked perfectly. The clothes were difficult because I needed color, but it needed to be toned down. I need more color in the bright lights (except for where it's highlighted) so I've got to go change that.

As for the drawing, I'm pretty happy. Some of the edges have to be repainted because they get a little too lost. My head was about three times too big (I had drawn the ear in the wrong place and used it as a mark for the back of my head, but that's fixed.) It might be a tad too tall now, but it's much, much better. The canvas was a friggin' PAIN to get the lines straight, even with some embroidery thread as a straight edge. Ah well, it looks really good in person for how many times I had to paint over it and back over it and fix it and... ugh. And the actual canvas I painted on is warped, but I'll fix that when it gets down. But other than that I'm really, really happy. Wait to go MSPaint for helping me out too. Getting two figures placed on the canvas when they're both you is hard!

And am I the only girl who does not take off like thirty pounds when I draw myself? Seriously now. Everyone was a friggin' stick and I think I added weight too look a bit more solid. I like to look like I'm in a place and not just placed there because I'm really only paper thick. If that makes any sense. I don't know.

On another topic, big high five for Dane who was in the same boat as me, though not exactly because he was doing an MFA thing and I'm just in the third year of my BFA. We both did ours on the last day and kept each other company while we were wigging out. Well, as I was wigging out. Dane, what I wouldn't give for your patience with me, yo. I'm going to miss you!!

Well, that's all I can think of to say right now. It's on display at LATech VAC along with four others. If you're going on a tour you'll see it. It's definately much better in person.

Ja!