Art Historical Self-Portrait

In this assignment, we were asked to create a self portrait of our selves while creating a background that represented an influential artists piece, or a movement in art history that sparked change. I decided to use René Magritte as my artist of interest, and the artist that I would create a google slides presentation on, a he had a very unique and interesting story as an artist an man. After diving deep into the history of our artist, I began painting using acrylic paint colors of blue, yellow, and some red. For the self portrait, I went with a photo f my younger self, I thought that It would be interesting to try to match the background to my facial expression. To create this portrait, I used a variety of different lead densities, and strokes.

To create this price, I used many principals of art that include emphasis, color, and unity. The emphasis comes from the yellow that wraps around my head as to frame it and bring the artists attention to the main focus; my baby face. The principal of color comes from the three primary colors blue, yellow, and red. These colors contrast well together, remind of childhood, and the off expression in my face. The principal of unity comes from the way that the background matches the self portrait. Although lead (graphite) and paint are two very different materials, I was able to unify them using colors and stroke techniques that would match the expression in my face.

I decided to use René Magritte as my artist of interest, and the artist that I would create a google slides presentation on, a he had a very unique and interesting story as an artist an man. However, after trying many backgrounds of his style, each one, although interesting took away rather than complemented the portrait as too many components of dream like ideas had to be included in order to be thought of as a surrealist painting. So, I switched my background to more of a pop art approach, trying to match my mysterious, childlike expression to the colors and brushstrokes. I am most proud of the pencil strokes, and shading in the face of the self portrait that I think really help to make the features pop and the overall portrait come together. Surprisingly, there is nothing that bothers me other than I few minor errors int eh face.