Scratchboard Portrait & Value Strip

Artist Statement

This piece is a portrait of me wearing a denim jacket. I made it out of scratchboard. I chose to make this work because I liked doing portraits, and since most people were doing a picture of their pet, I decided to be different.

I used value and pattern in this piece. I used value because the shading was basically the entire concept of the piece, so I had to pay lots of attention to where the highlights and shadows sat. The pattern is in the triangles that sit around the left edge of the piece. I wanted to do something that was detailed, because that's easier to do than non-detailed things with scratchboard. So I decided to use these repetitive yet still intriguing triangles.

There isn't much meaning behind this project. I just wanted to do a self portrait, and then I didn't know what to put in the background, so I used the triangles. That's really it. It relates to my life because it is a picture of me that I recreated. I think it would be stronger if I had made the face more accurate. something about the face is just off, and I can't tell what, but I can tell something's not right.