For this final piece I didn’t want to do a large piece, doing larger pieces are not my style and I find my work is not as detailed on a larger scale and I struggle widely with that. Therefore I worked with A4 , I wanted to incorporate all the different elements I have learned throughout my experimental and just make it an experimental on it’s own. I’ve enjoyed doing my own attempts of trail and error and I didn’t want to pressure myself for everything to look perfect and realistic as it simply isn’t me and I tend to put myself down if it isn’t real and art shouldn’t feel like that. I loved doing this assignment I liked doing my own style scruffy just having fun and taking inspiration from my original artists, I took a lot of inspiration from my artist research in using different medias and having a texture background, I love having a rough texture to draw on it made it more inventive and interesting therefore I used this in my final piece.

Below is a picture of my result:

I’ve spoken throughout about working with mixed media so I came back into this final piece with a textured background, I used a thick white paint to base off then layer up different coloured water colours and went to town with my biro on creating this portrait, based off an internet photo due to COVID. I loved it, just creating marks and being scruffy yet adding tone and mark makings throughout, I added different coloured water colours to show the elements of the face and created different marks. I feel like with a little more time I would have been able to create a larger piece with more elements yet due to COVID I have been having an increased work load in my job I’ve been working more than 40 hours and it’s been incredibly difficult to juggle the two as art is so time consuming as well, I am working on getting a better time schedule but its taken many tears to get here and to finally finish, I’ve tried the best I could with my time and worked as hard as I could with all the pressure at the moment. I am happy with my outcome, it isn’t my best best but it’s what I managed within this messed up world right now so I’m not going to put myself down. I like the mixed media it really made me enjoy my work and smile whilst creating it, it was messy my hands got messy and it was fun! The detail throughout was interesting and I liked looking at portraits in a different light.

All in all I am happy with my final piece and I took elements from the different mixed media artists I looked into earlier with the bold colours and scruffy lines throughout, I think I created a good detailed piece and all in all I am pleased throughout with myself for managing to finish this assignment. I am going to work harder with my time in the next courses and try my best to get everything in on time and quicker even.

As part of this assignment I wanted to experiment with line drawing where I didn’t take my pencil off the page whilst doing a portrait, I do believe this makes a good effect and I enjoyed doing this approach I think my style of work is scruffy so this was totally a good approach for me. Below is a picture of my result:

I did include a water colour background in this piece because that is what I am aiming towards in my final piece, I think it really works with my mixed media theme therefore that’s why I’v included it, I do believe I enjoyed doing this I like the different details and outlook of this piece I got. I think it made quite an effective piece. I do think it would look better with either biro or fine liner and that is what I will do in my final approaches of my final piece. It doesn’t show as good infant of the textured background. I do like this piece I just think it will work better with a different media.

For this piece I wanted to continue with the mixed media trials I am doing, I took this piece and decided to try pencil over water colours, I wasn’t too overly keen on the result but I just wanted to experiment. Below is the picture of my result:

I think I liked the back ground of this piece, I’ve enjoyed having a mixed media as a background and I’m really impressed with how my work experiment has been going. I wanted to try sketching over the top but I don’t feel it fits the mixed media look I am hoping for in this assignment, I believe I enjoyed doing the biro more and I’m leaning towards that line of work throughout the rest of this, I wanted to then incorporate colour more so I went over with a water colour pen to give some definition and save this piece a little, but doing that made me like the look of it so I am going to further the approach in my work.

For this I wanted to do something inspired by abstract art, I wanted to have a pact of colour and lots of different mark making, it does call for quite a busy piece but I really enjoyed doing these and I think this style will be contributed in my future work for this assignment, below are both pictures of my results:

I used a biro and water colours to use on both of these pieces, I felt it would give an interesting look and more bold piece. I think these portraits turned out well, I like the idea of the different mark making throughout these pieces and I feel this style can lead me to a lot of different features throughout my work, I want to continue with this style, as well as use different materials and media to create different work. I do believe I want to do some work inspired by different artists therefore that will be my next little exercise and I will be taking this style further in those pieces as well.

For beginning of my initial research on this assignment I’ve started to do some portrait sketches, in this initial research I’ve used a soft pencil to create more tonal pieces and to look more into the individual features of the face and get an idea of how I want to go with my work during this assignment and really work on getting the right style I will do for my final pieces.

Firstly I approached the first portrait with a line details, I didn’t want to add too much tone I felt like I could create an effective piece using lines and just trying to create effects throughout the face instead the classic tonal face portrait, below is the picture of my result:

I feel like this drawing went just the way I wanted and envisaged it, I like the different lines throughout the face I think it shows an effective piece and it’s worked well with my style and how I present my work, I do like this drawing and will look into further pieces like this. I’m thinking of looking into line portrait artists and seeing if I can get some more inspiration off that.

Next is my tonal portrait, I do feel I need to do independent studies of tonal portraits because I don’t feel my own style is completely realistic when it comes to portraits, whether I’m doing too small a scale and not managing to get the detail in or using the wrong softness of pencil. Below is the picture of my result:

I do think I need to work detail into my portraits more and really focus on finer details, I believe it may be me using too soft of a pencil to be able to achieve the detail and realism I’m really looking for, I do think with doing these types of portraits I’m not showing off my true style therefore I will continue doing tonal portraits yet this will be in my own time and not to do with my final piece, I’m leaning more towards line art and how that effect and how more used to doing those types of piece I am, I think my work style is more ‘scruffy’ or mark making than realistic tones.

All in all doing these first initial portraits I have already learned so much about what I’m going to continue to do and different styles I need to trial on my own, it’s all about practice and I will do future tonal drawings with a more fine pencil to see if I can get that detail I’m looking for.

Alexander Moldavanov is a Russian Painter, he focus’ a lot around abstract art, he uses bold colours and creates very contemporary pieces of art. He went to art school and in his biography’s he is always saying how much painting means to him and how great it makes him feel when he is doing it. I do believe his work is very striking and I have picked a few to look more deeply into and get some ideas of his techniques and colour palette.

Looking into this piece above his work is all quite similar, I’ve got the impression from quite a few pieces he does a detailed underneath or section then he makes striking paint brush marks around and blends colours together to create interesting marks throughout the portrait. I has inspired me to look into trying this type of art myself, I think the brush marks really make a good piece of work and the way he blends all the colours of the face together around the eye make a striking piece of art. I think it gives an interesting look for the viewer and I would like to experiment with trailing this style myself, he uses oil paints but I think I will have to trail with acrylics.

This piece really struck out to me, I think the way he has painted the portrait then done those thick strokes of paint coming off the front of the face into the distance, I think it’s different and unique and that’s what draws the viewer in, his work has good tone as well as being abstract and out of the blue. I the detail he has managed to make throughout the back side of the face and then it blends nicely into the front part. All of the colours he uses are a blend of the different features of the face which make the piece more effective in the way the blend goes up away from the face, his work has really inspired me into look into different ways I can style my work with trail and error.

This piece struck out to me a lot , I feel like this piece is quite political but I like how he has used his art to express this, I like how he has managed to represent who the person is and make a detailed features of the portrait and then he uses paint to just ‘splat’ over it and I do think it’s a different and unique way of displaying art. Looking into these pieces of art has really inspired me to explore portraits and form in my own way and try to be more adventurous in my drawings.

I began this research by looking into Rembrandts self portrait, his work is very realistic and the paint strokes are soft. Everything blends just right together and he’s created such a marvellous piece. I found it enchanting to see such a great piece of work done of his own face, below is the picture I am referencing to:

I then looked into Van Gogh’s self portrait, his portraits are more iconic of his style. The mark making with the brush and the different patches of colours create a more interesting piece, the work isn’t too realistic but looks so unique, all of the colours blend well together to create a lovely self portrait. Below is the picture I am referring to:

I feel like both of these historical artists use similar materials, it create an interesting yet realistic approach and is very common in historical paintings. I feel like they had such elegant ways of showing their self portraits. I think the tones they create through there art is effective and it has given me inspiration for showing this is my own self portrait, I love how they blend the shading so well together.

This piece by Barkley :. Hendricks is a more contemporary piece, the different way he has expressed his self portrait is special. I like how the white robe is made a big part of the piece by showing faintly, the shading throughout this full piece is amazing, I love the way he has blended the paint throughout to create an amazing blend . I feel like this has changed so much, the later portraits have close ups. I believe in contemporary they show more and the portrait isn’t just a face, the full body on this self portrait I looked into and below is that picture:

I feel like the whole concert of art has changed throughout the years and all of these pieces have really helped me get inspired for my own portrait and how I am going to look at my work for the rest of this section of the course.