Painting Ranking Project...

For ranking I wanted to work with the figure but apart from the time I would have available with the life model I didn't really have anyone available to pose for me. So I decided self portraiture was the way to go.

First things first was to get over my phobia of staring at myself in the mirror for ages so I just needed to get started and paint myself.

Not too bad but nothing special. Composition is a bit boring too but it achieved what I wanted to achieve, I no longer feel wierd staring at myself in the mirror for hours on end.
Next I played around with composition, doing loads of studies using ink, paint or charcoal. I wanted to play around with perspective and this composition is what I settled on to work up;

After settling on this image I got to painting;




Underpainting done. I wanted to bear in mind the use of colour throughout this piece to add depth to it. Adding depth is particularly important to a piece like this as without it the painting would essentially look like a flat painting of a very deformed little man.

Almost done. At this stage there were only a few things that were bothering me; I needed to work up the detail on my face a little as this is the forwardmost element of the composition. I also needed to consider what to do with the 'painting within the painting'. I didn't want this to be fighting with the actual figure within the piece colour wise so I had to figure out a way to make the painting inside the painting actually look like a painting and not just some sort of wierd reflection.

Finished piece. This is my wall set up for final ranking assessment. I pared back some of the detail to make the problem area look more like a painting and added a few details to cement the idea that it is a painting of me painting a painting of me..... I added a piece of paper and some thumbtacks to help the visual interpretation.

Got into painting..................woop!