This is my rendition of the Inspiration All Around Us challenge. This challenge is a portrait, definitely not one of my strong points and definitely out of my comfort zone. I wasn't sure what to do on this one - I knew that any form of realism was not going to resemble Jennifer (the model). I just haven't found the magic of capturing the person so that they resemble themselves. My portraits do look like people (as opposed to looking like animals or insects), however, they never resemble the person who I am painting. There is a knack to capturing a persons essence that I've seen other artists have, but I have not found that key -- yet. I am hoping that as I do more portraits, I will learn that skill.
On this challenge I chose to line draw the model, and only capture the eyes & partial lip. This way I was able to keep the image simple and not have a great amount of detail to fuss with. Also, by having only a hint of the nose and a partial lip, the image is a vague resemblance to Jennifer.
I don't consider this one of my better works, but I am glad I met the challenge and ended with a result that isn't food for the garbage bin!
Acrylic on canvas, final size is 7 x 8
9 comments:
Je pense que votre défi est réussi, bravo!
I think this is a neat approach to a portrait, Nancie. I love the composition of this piece too!
Nancie, thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog. Looking forward to spending some time seeing your work.
Hi Nancie, I think you did an awesome rendition! The colours are great, and I like that effect, I'm still working out how you did it!
Nancie, this is a very cool rendering and I think it's very well done. I like the way you've made the portrait so much more interesting with your technique.
I am impressed.
Thank you everyone. This technique was inspired by a technique I saw in art class back in my school days. Two different artists did sketches, where the subject was done with small, repetitious items. One was done of Jim Morrison of The Doors (I'm dating myself a bit here) done entirely of small petal flowers. The other, a corvette, was done only with the lettering of the word corvette. In both instances, if you stand back, the eye assimilates the letters & flowers into an overall image. Stand up close, and the eye zero's in on the details of the letters or flowers. In this I chose to use just a repeating diagonal line, varied in length & value (the purple acrylic lines). I then added acrylic paints to add some color for the skin, face & dress. (If I had done this in watercolor, it would have been a more transparent wash of colors). I may try more of this technique in the future, even utilize letters, words or flowers.
I love your interpretation and technique! Particularly appreciate detailed explanation of what you did (I was wondering if it was a resist technique). This was refreshing to see.
What an interesting portrait! I really like this. You more than met this challenge!
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