Summer Work and Planning for the Future

The National Portrait Gallery

InfluenceFor the summer I had to produce a painted portrait of myself; this piece would say something about me as a person, and would emulate the style of a chosen artist. During my visit to the National Portrait Gallery, I chose four portraits that I found visually appealing to me personally. I then chose one to pursue further, to paint a copy of, and influence my own portrait later. I chose a self portrait by Robert Bevan, this was because I found the colour palette quite cold and unusual, and not like the more realistic hue choices of other pieces. I liked the solemn tone that the piece gave off, and I wanted to emulate a mood similar to this in my own response. I also liked how Bevan outlined his features, it made for a sharper composition and reminded me of Pop Art, and illustrations in graphic novels.

The subject of the piece is the artist himself, he was not known for portraiture, especially of himself, and this piece is believed to have been his sole work on self-portraiture. For reasons unknown, this piece was never publicly displayed in Bevan’s lifetime; only in death was it found and exhibited. The painting was made with oil paints on canvas. At the time, the use of pure colour was quite an experimental approach to art, and Bevan was met with a lot of scrutiny for some of his more vibrant, garish works. This criticism followed with a more subdued palette from Bevan, which gives this piece a solemn feel, as he felt the need to reign in his preferable hues to meet the approval of the English public.

In terms of painting process, the way in which Bevan carved the brushwork at sharp, swift angles in short streaks gives the piece an impression of precision and perfection; he shaped the subject as if carving a sculpture. I believe this portrait says a lot about Bevan as a person, in terms of composition and paint application. The composition seems very well thought out; the background looks to be a deliberate ensemble as the positioning of the door frame to the edge of the tabled object almost perfectly encapsulate the subject in an isolated, man-made frame within the setting. The painting style of angular, defined strokes coupled with the carefully arranged setting expresses a practical man who appreciates the aesthetically pleasing. The lack of harsh tones in the background almost diminish the illusion of space, however the stylistic choice of bold outlines around the figure disallows this, giving the foreground subject a definite look of prominence and clarity. The setting suggests he was a well managed, serious man who found interest in the mathematical side to portraiture, rather than capturing the subject’s personality.

My copy of Bevan’s piece

Self Portrait by Robert Bevan

Initial sketchesIn terms of drawing to develop ideas, I wanted to experiment with a range of different angles before deciding on the best approach. Some sketches were quite intimate and invasive. Profile sketches simply offered a less personal feel, the subject is not looking at or aware of the observer. The sketch with my bedroom in the background offered a glimpse into the subjects environment and interests, however the busy composition could lead the observer away from the portrait which was not what I wanted. I decided to choose a simple straight angle with no background, I felt this was intimate, personal and offered no distractions. A side profile would not reveal enough of myself and it is too distant, and it would be extremely challenging with the mirrors. I thought about adding a leafy background because of my love of nature and protection of the planet however I chose to stick with an empty landscape. One sketch was done at a low angle to create an intimidating feel, however that would be me merely trying to put on a facade as I am far from intimidating. In terms of materials I used different types of pencils to achieve the sharper and softer tones in these sketches- some sketches have very simple tone, some have more realistic shading with a softer pencil.

After deciding on the composition for my painting, I moved on to experimentation with colours. I wanted these colours to communicate a certain mood and say something about myself. I wanted to develop an understanding of what different lighting and colours could say to an observer, like the solemn and isolated impression I got from observing Robert Bevan’s piece. In terms of materials, I used acrylic paints for my colour studies but experimented with different sized brushes in order to achieve simpler and more realistic tonal effects.

Initial colour testsI created several colour studies before I decided which to use in my final portrait.

For my first study I wanted to celebrate my features. I painted myself outside when the sun offered a harsh light across my face, this lighting really captured facial definitions and gave the portrait a real rounded, shapely form. The idea behind this lighting was an ironic sort of jab to my own self consciousness, as my face shape and features have been somewhat the source of my own self ridicule and have spawned past physical and mental problems for me. The irony is in the fact that I am exaggerating my features with the lighting so the face I am so self critical of is on full display. I wanted to emulate the style of Robert Bevan in this piece, how he used some unusual/un-naturalistic colour choices, however the contrasting lighting disallowed many subtle colours to show up so I could only really use plain hues like yellow, cream, dark brown and grey. Overall I felt this colour study wasn't the composition I wanted. The shadows suggest an imposing, intimidating subject, which is opposite to my actual personality.

For my second study I wanted to tone down the level of contrast in the former piece in order to pick up subtler and more unusual hues in my skin. I had recently bought a colour changing bulb that allowed me to adjust the lighting cast on my face when painting. For this study, I used a blue light and worked in my bedroom. There is still a contrast present in order to give the piece an interesting visual dynamic. I emulated Bevan’s style in my colour choices, he too used blues, pinks, and yellows to create a naturalistic piece which hinted fauvism with its subtle unusual palette. His piece looked colder, I wanted to increase the saturation to suggest a passionate, younger tone. The colours have many implications which make the piece interesting. The two sided colour palette suggests a conflict of mood, personality or identity. In this case it represents my conflictions in terms of gender identity; blue being the stereotypical representation of male.

For my third study I wanted to explore a warmer mood/lighting so I painted myself cast in a red glow. I found this colour study lacked the dynamic colour contrast of the former two, casting red on a cream/pink face results in an overall look of red, it was too warm as the red light just took over the yellow and cream hues and overwhelmed the rest of my face. I believe the colour choices in this study give off an aggressive feel; the contrast of such deep hues with my plain, expressionless face suggest an anger or passion behind the eyes. The blue background works well with the foreground subject's colours, however overall this composition was my least favourite.

For my fourth study I wanted to tone back the unnatural lighting to focus on capturing the natural skin tones of my face. Admittedly, less contrast was very challenging to paint as I had to get the subtler tones right, in order to avoid a flat look to the skin. I decided to partially illuminate my face with a green hue which would make the composition more visually dynamic and would suggest an array of possible subtext. From my point of view the green hue looks as though it is creeping across the face, suggesting a slowly emerging emotion or problem that is gradually consuming the subject.

Final Process I decided that my blue toned study was the one I wanted to pursue. It was my favourite among the four studies in terms of colour; the blue hues in the foreground complimented the background while at the same time the pinks and yellows of the face created a sharp contrast.

I felt the piece lacked another dramatic element, therefore I decided to wear a vivid red T-shirt. This introduced another contrasting element to the piece which contributed to the visually dynamic composition I wanted to achieve. I also decided to make the facial tones slightly colder than my original blue colour study, to emulate Robert Bevan's piece more.

The blue glow on the half of my face was tuned to a bruised purple hue which stands out more prominently against the plain blue background, and creates a mid tone between the blue background and the red T-shirt. The reasoning behind the blue-purple lighting is an expression of inner conflict: a conflict of gender identity- the blue light stereotypically representing the masculine side of myself, and the red T-shirt acting as a gender-neutral hue suggesting conflict.

My process:

Firstly I carefully measured the proportions of my face and drew a faint line sketch of the entire composition. I then mixed the desired blue for the background and painted around the sketch of my head and bust. I then painted the hair and T-shirt in order to have other colours to compare the face tones to; if I wanted I could paint over the edges of these elements again if the face skin tones overlapped onto them. I then painted a basic overall palette for the facial tones, and from there I simply added subtler colours until the skin became even and naturalistic. I then added finer detailing into the hair, eyes, shirt etc. Lastly I added the outlines to the darkest areas of the subject to emulate Bevan's style.

EvaluationThe plain background allows no distractions from the subject, the blue is something I see every day on my walls, I am a morning person and love the blue sky as it puts me in an optimistic mood, therefore I wanted to surround my portrait/self with a cheery and familiar hue. I wanted to challenge my self consciousness by painting my face in an isolated environment, therefore viewers would have only the subject to focus on. I have never created a self portrait before so I wanted the composition to be fairly intimate; I didn't feel I needed any background features. The blue also acts as a pleasing contrast to my hair, skin and clothing.

What I loved most about Robert Bevan's piece was the way he contoured around his portrait with bold outlines, giving the painting an edge of pop art or a sharp definition like the illustrations in comic books. I was quite apprehensive about adding the bold outlines to each of my colour studies, the angle at which Robert positioned himself for his portrait allowed the outlines to not seeing flattening so I was worried that adding outline to my colour studies would flatten them. For my colour study with the soft skin tones, the outlines that I added did make the piece very flat, similar to pop art, which I disliked. I tried to make the outlines that I added to the other pieces subtler, and only in the darker areas of the piece, which I felt worked better but did still flatten them slightly. For my final, I outlined very little, only in the shadowed areas and not on the face at all. I believe this choice allowed the three dimensional look and rounded shapes of my portrait to be maintained, while hinting at comic style line art.

In terms of visual language, I learned that colours communicate a vast amount; they can set the entire mood for a piece, tell a story, or represent the personality of the subject. Through extensive experimentation I finally settled on the solemn blue-purple tones you can see here. The reasoning behind the chosen palette is very personal to me; the blue lighting is only cast on half of the face which represents a split confliction with my own gender identity. The blue signifies a stereotypical hue of masculinity, and the red t-shirt represents a suggested confliction but also a gender neutral ‘outfit’ for myself. I also learned that composition can express a great deal, because the subject is isolated and only the head and bust is present, the tone of the portrait is intimate and solitary.

In terms of solving problems, I easily painted over mistakes that I made, and if something didn’t look right and I couldn’t pin-point it, I would take a break and come back to it and see what it was, or I’d look at the canvas through a mirror to see if each element looked as good as it should. In terms of the process of development, I learned that it’s ok to have a bad idea, it’s good to experiment because I didn’t realise the amount of moods or tones you could create through colour and lack of background, and the many different versions of my personality through the different sketched angles. In terms of media and materials, I had not experimented with paint in portraiture before and I learnt acrylics are very non-final; you can paint over a mistake and it won’t show up like watery pigments and paints, the variety of tones available from three colours is endless- it really encouraged me to explore more colours and try to match every different one of my face.

My painting approach differed greatly from my colour studies to my final portrait. For my first colour study I used a much wider brush so the amount of detailing in tone was simplified and limited. I also started with painting the skin tones first, which was much harder than my method in my final because I had no other colours to compare the facial tones to. I believe this final piece is far more accurate in terms of realistic tone because I only painted the skin after the hair and t-shirt.

Reflecting On The First YearIn terms of learning experiences, the Tate project was a challenge, it tested my time management, and gave me a feel of working to a real client with a tight deadline, and it forced me to explore a variety of techniques/materials (both two and three dimensional). The Kew Gardens project taught me about the significance of insignificant things like patterns on plants and shapes of benches and flowers, I had to take a close look at my surroundings to formulate an idea and eventually a final print. The Museum project taught me the importance of visual communication (this was evident in my Japanese/Van Gogh final piece) and the materials and application of them on work creates a whole new meaning/mood/suggested message. The identity project and life drawing classes educated me on the skill of measuring the human anatomy, looking at the weight of a figure and the angles and bones that contribute to the slant of the torso; it taught me about subtle charcoal tones on the human body, and taught me how to achieve a three-dimensional roundedness on the human face.

In terms of figuring out my strengths, I believe I am fairly skilled with generating ideas and developing an existing idea by improving it, annotation/research, I developed a skill for experimentation with different materials, learned I am good at sticking to a deadline and making organised lists to keep on track with workload. Good at colour matching which I brought into the summer project, Elements I need to work on in my second year would include: presentation in my book; being less afraid to experiment with several materials; staggering my workload for specific days instead of setting myself a mammoth task for one evening; working on my observational skills in terms of proportion and angles; practicing tonal work with various different lighting; experimenting with digital art programmes; creating short flipbook animations in my personal time to prepare for animation classes at University. In terms of portfolio work I will need to practice illustrating in my free time more, using different materials and programmes to display a variety of skills for potential University choices.

Plans for the futureOver the year I have narrowed the direction of my career pathway. At the start of the year I did not have a specific art discipline that I felt strongly about; I had only considered pursuing an artistic career but this included fine art and graphic design as well as illustration, I simply knew that I wanted to do something creative. However, as the year has progressed I have experimented with a plethora of tools and materials for both college and recreational work that have assisted in my decision of choosing an art discipline. The Tate project encouraged me to experiment with graphic design which I found was not enjoyable for me, however coming up with the ideas for each alphabet letter and illustrating these by traditional means established my preference for illustration. At home I have been drawing everyday since the start of college to improve my illustration skills, which has equally increased my enjoyment of doing it; I have used several tools such as digital programmes, watercolours, copic markers, and pencil for these which has widened my skillset and knowledge of illustrative mediums.

In terms of my progression aim, I hope to qualify for university level education, and produce an exemplary portfolio that will display my level of skills across a broad spectrum of art. I hope to be able to seamlessly shift into a competitive working environment as an aspiring illustrator at University which will, in turn, help me to make a career out of this discipline.

In terms of qualifications needed, I am setting myself a goal to achieve a Distinction* in my Art and Design Diploma in order to give me the best possible chance at getting into the University of my choice. In terms of qualities, I believe I need to solidify the creative mind-set that illustrators need to have, by this I mean I need to practice coming up with concepts and art pieces at home which will prepare me for creating ideas for commissioned pieces in a job situation. In terms of experience and skills, in my free time throughout this year I need to continuously practice and experiment with drawing, painting, etc. using a variety of different mediums and subjects to work from; this will broaden my illustrative skill set and prepare me for future experimentation at university level. I will develop my observational skills by illustrating objects I come across that intrigue me, and I will develop my anatomy and proportional skills by drawing from human reference sites at home.

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