SELF PORTRAIT
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Exhibition Text :
My "Self Portrait" inspired by the post-impressionist works on Van Gogh, combines the multiple layering and various strokes to create something that demonstrates my presence. The goal was to demonstrate a morphed facial feature while also representing myself as if I was in the Van Gogh self-portraits during the era of post-impressionism.
: Artist Inspiration :
Following one of the artists in my comparative study, Vincent Van Gogh is known as one of the greatest Post-Impressionist artists in his present era. Van Gogh has made a variety of paintings throughout his life, and looking at his self-portraits, I was really interested in the way he uses line and form throughout his works. I love the way the background looks as if it's moving around the figure of Van Gogh himself, I wanted to take that movement and place that into my own piece. I also needed something to actually test out my painting skills, I believed I could handle Van Gogh's style because it takes a lot of lines and colors, I thought perhaps I would be able to convert that style into my own "Self-portrait." On another point, Van Gogh doesn't exactly have the exact form/shading of an actual person, doing this type of work would be easier on me because of my novice skills of painting, while providing myself a challenge of an important and established post-impressionist style of painting. Using Van Gogh as my inspiration would perhaps be considered "hitting two birds with one stone" as I would not only have an artist for my self-portrait, but also I would have used both artists from my comparative study, so it's a win-win! |
Self-Portrait - Vincent Van Gogh (1889)
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Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat - Vincent Van Gogh (1887)
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Noticing the darker color of blue I had used throughout my piece, it was a combination of this self-portrait with the other self-portrait. I wanted to really enforce those lines and really liked the way random colors appeared onto Van Gogh and the background he is placed into. I did try that out with my piece but I scrapped the idea entirely. I also enjoyed the art movement during the time of post-impressionism. The post-impressionist style of abstract and symbolic qualities really influences my main overall theme of my pieces. Taking something usual through reality, but changing it's form into something morphed is what I wanted to include within the piece. Still, I wanted to take a look into how Van Gogh does a closer look at detailed faces, and what he does to the background of a darker portrait. Looking at all these details was exactly what I wanted my piece to accomplish, as if it was a direct placement into a Van Gogh painting, though as much as I can with the current way I work with paintings. Also the colors used throughout Van Gogh's clothes almost matched a better fit into what I was wearing in my photo, so it worked better together than the lighter self-portrait up above. |
Planning Phase :
There's a bigger story behind the planning phase for my self-portrait, as in I changed my artist throughout the final portion of my thinking. My first artist I was originally gonna go for was unknown until I found the stylistic inspiration of Mucha, I really enjoyed his style of works, but I was curious on how exactly I was going to convert that style into a self-portrait knowing how my skills with painting are. I decided later into the project that Mucha would be a better fit for another project I would do in the future, but for the time being, this page consists on me deciding the artists for the self-portrait, and the beginning of the project in general. In a quick little conclusion, this was the start of my project, and my basis around what I was doing and thinking for artists. |
This second page was still during my past inspiration of Mucha and was basically a testing out of his style based on very different pieces of his work. I did various studies on the faces, hands, and overall form of the body that Mucha accomplished so nicely throughout his works. Working with Mucha's style was actually very nice with the use of a pencil, this is where I really went in and out with using Mucha as my inspiration for the piece. As much as I liked his work, I was wondering how I could get so detailed on a canvas, still I pushed on with it for a while. At the bottom of the piece the story was different, I was still working with Mucha's style but instead was trying to include my own types of works with it. I also insisted on the idea that my dog would be a main figure of the portrait, as it was something that really connected to me as a person through this time. This idea changes through the last page entirely. |
The last page here was when I changed my artistic inspiration to Van Gogh, I was insisted on coming up with a step plan process into painting my portrait like him, including outlines, shadowing, and etc. With that, I tested out actually drawing myself based on photos, though I did use a projector through my process. This page was dedicated entirely to the final thoughts of working with my inspiration into making the self-portrait in general. The step plan process follows like this:
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: Process :
Firstly, to start off I had to take an actual good photo of myself for reference, I went outside and put on an outfit i'm casually in at a public setting, luckily my hair wasn't too bad that day. Then, I had used a projector I had and copied the photo I had taken outside. My first step when starting to paint was choosing the correct type of color fitting to a Van Gogh post-impressionist piece. I had chosen a dark blue and washed it over the piece, since I had acrylic, I knew I would be able to work over it even with a lighter color, so I believed it was a good impressionist color. After that my first step was clear, I needed to outline myself through a light and dark color, this was not only to give myself a better perspective into where I was painting into lighting and shadows, but also since I used a darker color as my background, it was a better way to identify where my features are. This step went pretty well as it followed my rules well and copied down my face entirely to how I wanted the form to look throughout my piece.
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The next part of my steps was the contrasting colors into the shadowing itself, it didn't really go as planned but I transferred the colors into the places I saw dark through the photo. This part of the phase mostly worked with my skin and clothes. As the clothes revolved more of a "Paint exactly what you see," the face was a difficult part of the piece. I added a lot of almost "pink" to my face as the photo looks like my face is pretty red throughout the nose/cheek areas. This was still the start of the piece in full, as a lot of work with the face would be done much later into the painting, but this more focused on the clothing. Using one of my steps, to create the "Van Gogh stroke" process I used a bigger brush and painted over layers and layers of my skin to get it perfectly adjusted around my facial figure. Then it was to work on the hair and final touches. |
This was the final stretch of the portrait itself, it revolved around the final form of myself and the background form entirely. One thing included, of course, was the addition of my hair, which induced a brown and yellow combination and various swerves to get the hair in the right direction. I focused on working with the highlights in my hair and making swerves around my form with light blue and a variety of blue strokes throughout the rest of the painting. This was the final part of my portrait (other than the sides) and the final touches I placed into my nose, facial hair, and eyes. Each part had something to fix up a bit and through the end I put my best into finishing the piece to the best I could. I went back into the painting at a future moment in time and decided to work more on my facial features as I felt something was very off about one of my eyes and the color of my neck. Van Gogh has these features pretty descriptive and lined out so I believed to do the similar thing with a darker color formed of my skin color. I had also shortened the hairs on my chin because there isn't that much for something that looks so seen on the piece. |
: Experimentation :
One thing I experimented throughout my piece with was how different brushes work with another. There was a variety of brushes to my use and most of them looked pretty different. I worked with big to small ones to see which brush stroke would work the best with my piece. I did end up using most of them throughout my self-portrait, but it was the experimenting that helped me create a better form of myself for my piece using the style of Van Gogh. These various brushes helped me paint various areas differently than another, as one brush may have bigger strokes than another. |
Another thing I had worked with throughout my portrait was the colors. I had to get the best color that aligned with not only the skin on my face, but the red that goes through my cheeks and nose. There is also the background that consists of a variety of blues going in a wave-like direction towards or away from myself on the canvas. Plus the blues tat were throughout my dark-blue and light-blue jacket. This also brings up the shadows through the grey hoodie. The Various Colors I worked with include:
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Critique
Similarities :
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Differences:
- Van Gogh uses way lighter colors throughout his self-portrait: Depending on one of the self-portraits, Van Gogh almost uses a light grey or turquoise throughout his background, in which I use a way darker variety of blue through my background.
- Our sense of form is different of our faces: Not only are our figures pretty different, but Van Gogh has a more descriptive outline of his facial details compared to mine in which create almost the illusion that certain parts are there.
Reflection :
This was basically the hardest hitter for me, and that was speaking on a very great level. The reaction I had about my last painting was depleted into a whole of my being. So when learning about doing a self-portrait in the same style, with a bigger canvas, I cannot say I was excited at all. I already know my own skills with painting and I learned with the whole my main problem was that I have no patience. Painting is all about "trusting the process," but the feeling of something looking wrong for now just isn't for me. The problem with my last painting was that I really rushed the ending of it, and while I feel that I didn't do that as much with my self-portrait, it was still a problem within me. Various strokes throughout the painting are rushed and more placed because I was almost finished and very impatient, which was a foolish thing to do. Speaking with time management, I don't think I waited too long to do the piece, but I really could have done more given more time, but overall I am quite satisfied with how I did with the painting. Another fault I had was fear, this was a big project so I took too much time worrying about doing it than actually getting started into the piece, knowing how important this piece is, I wanted to get it perfect as I could. Though this was just a feeling of my faults during the piece, now to talk about what I feel I did correctly.
I really do think I captured a great self-portrait because the painting looks like me, which is obvious of course. My biggest fear was actually making myself look like me, and I captured that fairly well through this piece to my face, hair, and even the outfit I casually wear. There are a few mishaps compared to my inspiration though, I could have done better with forming my nose and eyes, but the rest works well with the style of Van Gogh. I followed my steps and carried through this portrait, which I am really proud to have done. I don't believe this is the best work I could dowith the medium given for the piece, I am satisfied with the result. I also really worked through my management skills with creating and executing a plan for the self-portrait, which helped me through a long line of work I had to do. My piece connects fairly well to my inspiration, and I worked to my absolute best to get the right form of myself, and the sides look way better this time. I would like to do a better self-portrait with a medium that's more, me, though I am not against painting again in the future, perhaps just for fun though.
I really do think I captured a great self-portrait because the painting looks like me, which is obvious of course. My biggest fear was actually making myself look like me, and I captured that fairly well through this piece to my face, hair, and even the outfit I casually wear. There are a few mishaps compared to my inspiration though, I could have done better with forming my nose and eyes, but the rest works well with the style of Van Gogh. I followed my steps and carried through this portrait, which I am really proud to have done. I don't believe this is the best work I could dowith the medium given for the piece, I am satisfied with the result. I also really worked through my management skills with creating and executing a plan for the self-portrait, which helped me through a long line of work I had to do. My piece connects fairly well to my inspiration, and I worked to my absolute best to get the right form of myself, and the sides look way better this time. I would like to do a better self-portrait with a medium that's more, me, though I am not against painting again in the future, perhaps just for fun though.
: Connecting to the ACT :
- Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork?
When looking at my inspiration I really wanted to include the way he uses form and line to look as if the background he is in is moving, I really included those featured into my painting. Not only that but the body form models the way he looks through his self-portrait, though less strict.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Van Gogh did various self-portraits throughout his art career, these were mostly just to study painting other people through his use of the medium he was using at that moment.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
It truly shows that throughout someones art career, you may not ever get recognized until people see your name dead and label you a struggling artist. Though Van Gogh's works were amazing, it took till his death for people to later realize his actual ability.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
I really just wanted to see how I could put my own art skills into a certain form, choosing Van Gogh did not mean his art for is "easy" to replicate, I honestly just liked his style and believed I could do it to the best of my ability.
5. What kind of inferences ( conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning ) did you make while reading your research?
I was able to actually learn some more about Van Gogh and his other works compared to the two I wrote about throughout my comparative study. I see how he creates people and their body form, it's very different compared to landscapes.
: Citations in MLA Format :
“Legacy of Vincent Van Gogh.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vincent-van-Gogh/Legacy.
“Van Gogh's Self-Portraits.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/stories/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-van-goghs-self-portraits.
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“Van Gogh's Self-Portraits.” Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/stories/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-van-goghs-self-portraits.
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