Paintings

For our assignment, we needed to make 3 original paintings: a landscape, a self-portrait, and something else. We were supposed to take 15 minutes on one, 30 on the next, and 60 on the other. It was an interesting experience to say the least, but I enjoyed challenging myself to paint.

Landscape

 
This is the landscape painting that I made for the class. This was my 30 minute painting. I first painted the green grass background. Then, I painted the blue sky. I used solid, basic brushes for these. I then used a thin, long stroke brush with dark green, yellow, and dark red to paint the grass on the green background. I used a wide but thin brush with white to make a slight presence of clouds in the sky. Overall, I was very happy with the way this one came out.

Other

 

This is the other one I made. This was my 15 minute example. I took blues, purples, and black background and threw them all together. I wanted to make a very random, but expressive piece. I would call this piece Lost in the Dark because people see a lot of different things when they look into this piece. Some see a face in the middle. I used a variety of brushes while experimenting with different sized brushes. I was very happy with the way this came out.

Self-Portrait

 

This is my self-portrait. This one took more than 60 minutes. I had a really hard time getting started. I tried to just wing it at first, but my first draft looked like a three year old trying to paint daddy. I then took a photo of myself and used that as a guide. That greatly improved my skills. I drew myself a blue shirt along with my body. I didn't have too much trouble with the project when drawing the basic shapes. I had the most trouble with my ears and nose. The picture cut off the ears, so I tried to replicate that, but I'm not sure if I captured them enough. It took me a while for the nose, but eventually, I just used a basic shape to help finish the picture. Overall, I would like to learn how to do my nose again. I am not 100% happy with this and I would like to revisit this concept once my skills improve.