Painting: Gold Self Portrait

This is my latest painting. A little self-portrait done mostly for practice.

This image was from a photograph of me and a friend that I cropped to get this interesting framing.

The canvas I used had been picked up on a trip to the Scrap Store, and it wasn't in too bad condition.

Since I already had the gold spray paint out (from this little project) I thought I'd spray some on the canvas just to see what effect it would give. I sprayed all around the edges and over one corner.

Since I was using a small canvas I had the opportunity to use my new table easel that I got given for Christmas. Works a treat.

 The gold paint can't be seen through the paint, but it looks great where I've left the canvas unpainted, especially on the edges which would usually be left white.

Painting: Process of a Self Portrait

I'm on a roll with this painting thing. Here's my new one.

I've had the idea for this painting for a while. Like, before I went to uni. So that's a pretty long while.

Having the free time and my visit to the BP Portrait Award finally pushed me to get it done.

Most of my paintings are just direct copies of photographs (which I don't have a problem with) but this painting is a composite of different images.

I knew I wanted a graffiti background so I went to my favourite source for graffiti and that's a video I took at uni one night when my friends and I were walking through an underpass on the way to a party.

I could have just googled graffiti but I like having a personal relationship with the imagery I use.

I took a few screenshots from the videos and picked out a coupla different bits of graffiti to use in the painting.  

For the figure in the painting I used myself just so I wouldn't have to wait around for someone to model for me.

I wanted my pink jacket to feature in the painting because I wanted the challenge of capturing all the folds and creases in it. I knew I didn't want the top under the jacket to be red (Red and pink? Really?) but I figured I would just paint it a different colour rather than bother changing. Because with paint these things are possible. Fascinating.

I put my camera on self-timer to take the photos and set up my room so it was dark with just a spot light coming from one side because I knew I wanted directional artificial lighting for the painting.

I stuck a blank canvas behind my head so that I'd be able to clearly see my hair which would help when I came to painting.

So there's a little behind the scenes into the images I used for my new painting. I hope it was interesting.

I won't be blogging next week as I'm going camping. Wish me good weather!

Paint, Cake, and Lady A

Today I wanted to share this new painting that I completed.

I haven't done much painting recently and when I have it's been landscapes so I thought I'd sharpen up the portraiture skills.

The canvas I used originally looked like this. Urgh.

A painting from many years ago that I gave up on because it was just not going well.

(Sorry to Laura and Lizzi for making you look like disfigured zombies)

A couple of coats of white emulsion later and the canvas was good to go for a second round.

Now do you guys want to know what I did for my birthday?

I went to see Lady Antebellum in London with my sister!!!

The tickets were a birthday gift from my parents.

They were soooo good!

It was a great night.

I love this photo I took of Charles. That man knows how to belt out a tune!

Incase you were wondering; my birthday cake tasted delicious.

Here it is all lit up. Yes, there are 22 candles on it.

And speaking of cake, my friend Stef got me 6 cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery.

(I may have not been able to wait until my camera battery charged to take a photo of them before I tried one)

And I finally got to try a red velvet cake that the blogosphere raves about. Pretty darn good!

There are two red velvet and four vanilla, and that icing is sa-weeet!

My Best Portraits

Before I made tiny things I used to paint. A lot.

You've seen a lot of my landscape paintings but I also used to do a lot of portraits. Infact at A level I did a whole project on portraits which I got full marks for. Boom.

So here are a few of the best portraits I've ever painted ever.

I got this painting professionally framed and it's currently hanging in my house.

I think I like the collar bone best. Is that weird?

Self portrait. There're quite a few of these but I like this one because it's a bit different.

This is my friend Stef and I think the painting really looks like her.

This is the first version of a few paintings of my Grandma that I did for A level.

This lady lived to be 101. Legend.

I love this fun painting of my friend Lizzi, and it was a lot of fun taking the photo to paint from.

This painting was done when we were 16/17 and she's got a lot more shoes now so maybe I should do an updated version with her entire collection.

Re-painting

I did this painting over 2 years ago when I was on my foundation course at college.

It was a development piece to practice a technique.

My work at the time was all about close up views of part of the body. This is the inside corner of the eye. But it's a bit weird and I have no need for it any more. It's not the sort of painting I want up on the wall.

So I painted over it.

I went a little abstract and just had fun making marks with paint and pens all over it, and you can still see some of the original painting underneath which I like.

Then I painted my face on top which looks like it's coming out from all the chaos.

In other news, I've been featured on Craftzine for the first time. So exciting!

Check it out here.

Also, if any of you are Instructables users and would like a 3 month pro membership then just leave your email address in a comment and I'll send it your way.

I've only got one to give away so the first commenter gets it.

Painting: Self Portrait with Feet

Here's my newest painting I did just for practice to keep my skills in check.

It's based on an old photo. And by old I mean 'playing around with my [then] new camera when I was 15 and I'm wearing my school uniform' kind of old.

I used oil paint and it's roughly A4.

I quite like it, what do you think?

Painting: Self Portrait

I thought I'd give landscapes a rest and re-visit portraits for this one. I think I'm a bit rusty with faces, so I may do some more!

Self portrait

I've produced many self-portraits in my time so I thought it would be fun to have a little retrospective and look at my skills through the years.

This wonderful drawing was made in reception class, so I was age 4/5. I hadn't quite grasped the concept of shoulders but I did draw fingers. I also made a good attempted at the check print on my school dress.

A year later and now my arms are coming from the right part of my body, though I have taken a step backwards with the fingers. To be honest, it was probably laziness.

On to year 4 (age 8/9) and I have both fingers and a neck. Definite progress. I've also done away with the spider eyelashes from the previous drawings in favour of a more natural look. Good work younger-me!

I now skip ahead to year 9 (age 13/14) as I seem to have misplaced all of my artwork from middle school. I've moved on from colours pencils to poster paint, and my hair has gone from blonde to brown. I even have ears and eyebrows and a varying pose, though I do miss the beaming smile present in the other drawings.

Year 12 now (age 16/17) and I have my medium of choice; oil paints. This was painted just from observation so it doesn't look like me very much, but it was displayed in the Principal's office for a while so it can't be that bad.

Year 13 (age 17/18) and I achieve a likeness I am happy with by working from a photo, which is the way I have worked since. This was from a whole portraiture project so I was experimenting with different colours and backgrounds.
I painted this in the summer of 2008, for funsies, and I loved painting the hair. I still haven't got eyes quite right though.

This painting is from summer 2009, right before I went to university.