Art Historical Gridded Value Self Portrait

After researching historical artists and art movements, I took inspiration from orphism and used it to put a creative spin on my self portrait. In order to create my realistic gridded self portrait, I had to first find a photo of myself that had a range of different values, and print it out. After gridding the photo, I drew an identical grid on a blank piece of paper. Going square by square starting at the top left, I drew in each square on the gridded piece of paper focusing only on the values and using what I know about negative space to make it as accurate as possible. Negative space is the space that is not taken up by an object or shape. As I did each square, I used a tortillion to blend in and smudge shadows and dark spaces. When my grid was filled, I created highlights with an eraser. Finally, using my orphism inspiration, I sketched out a unique background for my portrait. I used colored pencils to add color. I used value to create shadow and depth in my portrait. I also used value to create texture in my hair. By using color, line, and form I was able to create an interesting and exciting background. As my project evolved, I focused on making it as realistic as possible, focusing on the light and shadow on my face and how it affected the way my features looked. My face is something I see every day when I look in the mirror. I see every detail and every feature and imperfection. Creating this portrait was difficult for me because I’m so aware of what the final product should look like. Although my drawn portrait matches the photo square by square, the final result seems off to me. The orphism based background relates to my life in a way. The different colors, creating different halves and shapes in the circles show how sometimes things that happen in my life don’t match up, yet it all comes together in the end. In my artwork, I am proudest of how well I was able to match the values of the photograph to my drawing. I struggled with getting a dark enough shadow on the side of my face using graphite. I overcame this struggle by making sure it was still the darkest value of my portrait. In the future, if I could improve my portrait, I would make sure to erase the grid completely as I went along, and blend everything together so the grid would not show in the final product.