Happy holidays to all! Whatever you may celebrate, here’s to hoping it was a safe and bright end of a very long, dark year.
The holidays were quiet for me, and while I admit I spent way too much time on video games (an art form in and of itself, unless you were unlucky enough to be playing Cyberpunk on PlayStation), I did get a little painting done.
In an effort to consider good advice, I gave myself a few days away from my painting and started some other things before looking at my self-portrait again. This is an abstract piece that I am playing with!
I went back with fresh eyes. It really is amazing how many things you find to address after a few days of a piece being out of sight. I also started looking back at the previous iterations of the painting to see where (or not) I was going in the right direction and if there were things that I was getting away from that were successful earlier on.
I’m beginning to try to fix some of the bigger problems- correcting the hairline (which I am only understanding a plan for as I look at these photos), reestablishing the shape of the back of the head, making sure my features are correctly in line. There were some shapes that I corrected that surprised me- my eyebrows and mouth mainly. And it was beginning to lose some warmth and depth as I became too particular with fine details too soon, so I am beginning to experiment with warming up my darker shadows (but now need to fix a weird sunburned look). I’m also excited to reconsider the posture of the figure, it is stiff and seemingly turned incorrectly and doesn’t serve to make the painting better.
I still feel like I’m fighting with this painting but I’m significantly happier with its likeness to me which I think is the point of a self-portrait 🙂 I feel like I may never consider it done, but I’ve learned a lot from it and I’ve had a legitimately fun time doing so.
I learned that, while I did challenge myself initially not to be too precious and correct problems as I saw them, the more hours I’ve poured into this painting the less I’m inclined to completely redo a section (despite that undoubtedly being the best course of action). My best example of this is the left eye, which continues to be a sore spot no matter it’s improvement, as I can’t help but thinking it’s just out of place. If nothing else this has been a fun experiment that has kept me occupied through a strange holiday season.
What’s Playing- With video games on the brain, I’ve been enjoying a song I learned of from one of my favorite games, Death Stranding. This is Don’t be so Serious by Low Roar. It’s a pleasant addition to a study or art playlist.
