Self-Portraits

A self portrait is basically just a portrait where the subject is the artist themselves, as a pose to painting someone or something else. Selfportraits.org (n.d.) suggests that it was founded during the ancient period which thrived on Egyption and Greek civilisation.

A self portrait, much the same as a portrait, can be done using a variety of art forms. I chose to experiment using the simple technique of a charcoal sketch. Charcoal is said to be one of the oldest materials used in painting and is successful for sketching as it can be easily erased or smudged to create different textures (selfportrait.org, n.d.). This is an example of my self portrait.

In doing this exercise and actually drawing my own self portrait, I learnt a lot more than I had envisaged. In previous attempts to draw, I have not taken into consideration the proportioning and placement of facial features as I have today. I have learnt some valuable skills for which I would be sure to pass on next time I am teaching this art form to a group of impressionable learners. I think this shows in my overall end product as it appears a lot more life-like.

After I had drawn this picture, I took a canvas and decided to paint it using acrylic paints. I found this to be a lot harder. The charcoal sketch enabled me to easily shade the drawing and use defined line, however, with the paint, I found difficulties in making the right colour and creating defined lines. I can see how painting could be a lot more time consuming and difficult. The type of paint and brushes used is also important to achieving technique.