So I'm going to enter a self portrait contest...No I'm not that vain!LOL! The contest allows for up to 3 entries, but I'm going to start 4 and once I get started I'll decided which ones I'll finish for the competition.
The first thing I did was have Grant(my husband) take photo's of me. We worked out what I wanted before hand by using other paintings and photos that I liked. Played around with background ideas in photoshop. The images are in order of how they are progressing. The cropping stay the same, but the backgrounds will change. I first draw them out in color pencil and seal in the drawing with a watered down coat of acrylic varnish. This is the most important step.... the drawing must be perfect... work out all your bugs here, NOT half way through your painting! Drawing is a vital part of painting!!!(Grant will be so happy!LOL) Next I fill everything in with a transparent glaze of color in acrylic... At this stage they still resemble a paint by number, but I can still see my drawing. The next day I get into the oil paint. I'm still using transparent glazes using Original Liquin (my favorite medium!). I want to start establishing my colors. My next stage will be to start details...Shadows and highlights. At this point I've been working on this project for just over a week!
June 26/07
UPDATE!
So we are now about 3 weeks in to the project. I've narrowed it down to the 3 that I'll try and have finished for this Friday. I will go back soon and finish the 4th(I've taken it down untill I can get back to it), I've also removed the original Photographs... It's all about the paintings now! Since the last post just over a week ago I've done a few more Glazes and added some detail, basically my job for the next few days is to make any small last minute changes, get the shadows and highlights finished, add in the final details and final glazes of color to get them to the finished level. So I guess you'll be seeing all 3 of me in a few days!!
June 30/07
So we've gone from 4 portraits to 2 finished ones... don't worry I will be finishing up the other 2 in the near future and will have all the stages posted again! You can also view the finished pieces on my main blog. I'm very happy with the end result and have submitted these 2 for the contest... I should know by July 6 if any good has come of it all! On the main blog I have post a small write up on each of them. I have already decided to start working out the details for some more paintings with a similar feeling and theme. Maybe have more symbolism worked into the images, but we'll see how it goes!
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