Self-Portrait

I am very excited about painting a self-portrait, that I have never done before. First I had my picture taken then I uploaded it on photoshop. By which, I stylized the picture by playing around with the brightness/contrast and the hue/ saturation. I ended up with a photo with different layers of blue and purple. After I printed the picture and I took a post-it and measured the width of one eye then I used that to measure the sixe of my face. Estimated to around six and a half eyes. On my canvas, I eye bald where I wanted my face to be located than I used the post-it to measure six and a half eyes up to show where the eyes,nose and mouth goes. Then I drew in the rest of the body and background.

I started first by shifting my face upward on the canvas. After, I had every piece of the drawing where I wanted it, I was ready to paint. The best way to paint a self-portrait is by painting one color at a time that way you can actually focus of the shade of the color to give more similarity between your picture and the painting. I started the painting focusing on my darkest color black. I mixed dark red, dark blue and a tiny bit of bright yellow paint. The mixture of the paint gave me a dark violet very close to black. Now I just have to paint so many coats.

I put a second coat of the black paint on the canvas. Which is actually dark blue, dark red and a tiny bit of yellow paint. After that looked like how I wanted, I started painting my right shoulder using basic light blue paint with a thick strand in the middle of my upper arm that was a darker blue to show the the shadow. I move my attention toward my face, because after I do the face if I decide to change something it would be easier to move the shoulders and/or background. I used the same mixture of paint that was for the black but instead I didnt put as much dark paint into it., to make a medium to dark purple for one of the shadows of purple  on my face.

I finished painting the face with four different shades of blue paint. After that I continued downward using the same paint and just mixing a little mineral spirits to expand my amount of paint. After the step of painting my self-portrait, I can really see the whole figuare.

I continued painting with the different shades of blue. I put some pieces of red and pink paint in spots so that they standout. The lighter part of my upper arm, I mixed a little bit of light blue paint with some whitepaint to go along with the other parts of my arms and clothing. The background was much simplier I mixed two different up two differerent shades of gray. Using some blue and orange paint. I really enjoyed painting my self-portrait it allowed me to be more creative than I have been.

Landscape Oil Painting

The first step in painting my landscape, I had to first put gesso on my canvas. The gesso helps the paint stay on top of surface of the canvas instead of bleeding in. The secret to using gesso is spreading thin layers along the canvas covering it completely. In this picture, you will notice how secondly I had to tone the painting. I took burnt senia and a large paint brush and brushed the paint along the canvas. A little bit goes a long way, thin layers are always best.

Next, is the abstract drawing. By following the structure of the landscapein the picture given by my professor, I sketched out the different items that I saw up close. Still with the burnt senia, I painted where the hills started, the crops began, and the trees blumed. This over all step is very important, because it aligns your painting making it easier to see my painting come alive piece by piece.

The next step in this painting is checking the angles of the crops by the angle of the paintbrush and bringing it up against the canvas to show the exact angle of the crops. Then, I created a grayish-blue background that I neutralized with some white paint to show how far away the mountains are. When I paint big areas, i hold the end of my paint brush away from me. When painting the crops, I had to mix green paint with some dark red to make the front crops darker then the ones further away from me. I took a little bit of burnt senia and used the side of my brush to give lines to show the deatils in the grass around the crops. The clouds I started with the darkest blue and slower mixed it to make it lighter in spots. In the near future I will connect most of the clouds into one dark one.

I started connecting the clouds to make them look more powerful. I used a combination of paint to give them a grayish-blue appearance, but I kept the smaller clouds to make the sky look more realistic. Also, I took my rag and blotted the clouds to show the different textures. Going further with the clouds I used different shades of blue to give them a stormy appearance. Next I did touch ups on the sunset. I had to clean up my messy spots. Also, I had to my clouds more form, I took my brush and wipe the bottom of the clouds upward to show the softness of a cloud. Back to the crops I took some blue and yellow paint to make a light green to help bring out a few of the plants.

Touch-up day, I got to finalize my landscape painting. i started with the clouds again. This time on the other hand, I connected all the clouds to form one really big cloud. Plus, I had to make the clouds look believeable so i mixed orange and blue paint to make three shades of gray paint. I held my paint brush tilted and brushed paint in different directions, because we all know clouds are never perfect in shape or color. When it comes to the grapevines I had to make the front sections darker and taller so the viewers can see how tall the plants are. There had to be a depiction of different colors in the grapevines. The darker ones are up front and they seem to get lighter as you look further inside the painting. I especially like how the sunshine shines on top of the grapevines.