Assignment 3: Value/Self Portrait

 

This piece was a very fun piece to complete, I love working in black and white mediums and I love creating portraits. I chose to select an image of me to recreate that did not necessarily have a ton of deeper meaning on a subjective scale. I decided to choose this piece as it was a reflection of what I view as an easier time and place in my life. A time where I would pick up a pair of sunglasses off the ground that clearly didn’t fit my face properly and laugh all night with my friends around me. Although this piece struck an emotional chord with me it struck me much more as an artist. The best description for this piece was a technical test of skills with the application and reduction of black and white mediums. It required me to both be able to put down a heavier amount of charcoal to test my limits in what I’m comfortable with darker tones. As an artist I frequently struggle with the fear of the over application of dark charcoal. However, with this amount of projects focusing on that level of application and comfort I am slowly becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of darker tones in my pieces. I have done several pieces in the past years that I believe I completely overdid darker tones, however this is not one of those pieces. I also attempted to add a heavier amount of highlights in this piece, the reference was a fairly dark image and so spotting them on a dimly lit laptop screen was not the easiest thing but I certainly tried. The only really light spots in the piece was the reflection of a phone screen and a crack in a window in my sunglasses. But never the less I tried my hardest to push some darker and lighter tones in this piece.