Painting I Portfolio
Selected work
Isaac J. DeHaven , "Mountain Landscape at Dawn"
Acrylic on 5x7 Canvas, 2020
For my first painting, I painted a landscape. I look up to Bob Ross, and I wanted to incorporate some of the things I find inspiring when I feel encouraged watching him work, such as scraping the paint with a flat edge to bring the mountains and pine trees into shape. I value feeling peaceful, and a sense of peace and serenity comes naturally when painting something like a sunrise over a beautiful space. I hoped to make not just the experience of painting this a soothing thing, but looking at it thereafter, too.
One thing that I found to be a challenge that required the hardest work was to get the reflection on the lake to match the mountains themselves accurately. One of the things that I am the most proud of is the dimension and lighting I created in the mountains. I like that I created a picture that makes me feel, "Wow, I would like to see that landscape and that sunset with my own eyes because it makes me feel at peace."
Isaac J. DeHaven, "Self Portrait"
Acrylic on 5x7 Canvas, 2020/21
For this painting, I decided to do a self portrait. I want to explain that after I started it, I went in quarantine and rushed to finish it after I got back right before the end of the semester, so I did not end up getting the time I wanted to make this exactly what I hoped. It is also my very fisrt time painting a face, so I really hope all that is considered when this is viewed. If I had more time with it, I feel like I could have improved the shading to give it more dimension, and make adjustments on things like some proportions and placements of facial features that I'm still not quite comfortable with. I would like it to look more realistic and skilled.
I used my freshman school picture (my latest; I am a freshman) for reference when I painted this. Even though I'd like to improve it, I think it's off to a solid start resembling me. You might notice the Hawaiian shirt (well, probably, it's a little loud). I have a lot of Hawaiian shirts and have worn them almost every day since elementary school. I made it my signature style back in 4th grade because they have a laid-back feel, peaceful and fun, and since I'm laid-back, I think they reflect me and show who I am on the inside from the outside. Of course a Hawaiian shirt of mine ended up in school picture and painting, because it wouldn't be exactly me without it.
I am definitely considering re-doing this in my free time and seeing how I improve with a little more time and experience, but for the limited time that I worked on this, and it being a very first effort of this kind, I'd say it's a promising start.
Isaac J. DeHaven, "Painted Elk"
Acrylic on 5x7 Canvas, 2020
For my second painting, I turned to my love of wildlife and chose to paint an elk. I am on the new side of using acrylics, and I thought that an animal like a deer or elk would give me some different kinds of textures to work on. I'm the most satisfied with how his head and antlers turned out. I feel like I did a nice job on the proportions in the face and the positiong of the elk in the frame to be balanced. I also think elk are majestic animals, and I captured that sense of calm strength and authority over his space in this elk.
One thing that I would like to change next time is to not the rush the background and create more detail. Actually, over winter break, I painted a deer picture, similar to this one, to give to my grandparents for Christmas, and when I did it, I worked on kind of improving the things I wanted to do better on next time around when looking back at this one (that picture, the one for my grandparents, is the background to this page, so you can see it, too, if you can around this foreground stuff). As you can see, this elk picture was important enough to me to want to sit back down and expand on workimg on the topic, even when I was done with this actual painting for class. I hope you find it an interesting subject and painting, too.
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