My self-portrait painting went through a long process of applying many layers of colours and paint. I wanted to make a very thick texture that people would want to touch and that really popped off of the canvas. My intended message and mood I was trying to evoke was a serious but not so serious portrait, much like my self-portrait drawing. When we were taking pictures for the portraits, I wanted a serious photo but the photo of me laughing brought forth more of an intense feeling because it was so spontaneous and I wanted that to be represented in my painting by just applying whatever to it because I was so cautious creating my drawing.

I started the portrait by creating a simple blue back round with the darker outside fading into a lighter blue. This was to create a dark side to my painting. I used deep greens to lighten up the back round a bit and to add more focus to the back round. By using the cool colours, a somber mood was created but was made less intense when I added the light orange at the bottom and red streaks at the top. I used lots of paint around the outside of the canvas but left the middle open with the wood bare. After that, I created a skeleton for the body with a light yellow that I lightly applied. I used a rich orange to outline the guitars neck and headstock as well as the beginnings of the facial features. I created a brown helmet of hair to get a simple idea of the shape it would have to be. Later, I shaped out the face and neck and started painting in the shirt with a white and a little light blue. I used the dry brush technique on some parts of the shirt and a very wet brush on other parts to start adding attention to the creases in my shirt. I used a peachy skin colour to shape and colour in the head, neck and arms and a light brown to shape the guitar neck. Later I added more gray to the shirt, which made it a little darker. I also added a colour and light green outline of a tie.

I thought a positive aspect that lead me to my final painting were the colours I applied to the face. I added shapes with dark blues and very light yellows to the face to start creating shadows around the nose, mouth, chin, and by my ear. I then painted over that the next class with a light skin colour so it would sort of pop out. This taught me later how to apply shadows to the face and how to paint over them but still keep the visible. After that I added some pink undertones to brighten the skin underneath a little. Another positive aspect that took me to my final painting was when I realized I could paint over anything and that it was relatively easy to change some things. This helped me in the end because I wasn’t afraid to take risks and I ended up happy with the risks I took. The area in which I would like to improve on is creating more lifelike features in the hands and face. I want my painting to be more realistic and more similar to the actual thing being painted. I also would have liked to improve on my eyes, tie and guitar because I feel like I rushed them because we were close to the deadline. Overall, I really enjoyed painting and didn’t think it would lead to something so rewarding.