first sustained investigation

Alex

2x2

For all of my sustained investigation, I chose to use oil paint. The only media that vary in these four pieces is what I am painting on. For this one, I used a 2x2 slab of birch wood. I used the 2B for sketching and outlining so it could be erased easily. For this project, we could choose any media and any subject, but they had to answer a question we came up with. My question was, "what media do I like best for portraits and on which surface?". I experimented by using oil paint for the first time. I had previously only used acrylic or watercolor, but I am really liking how the paint blends with each other.

I used color and value to make form by including all the highlights and shadows. I created contrast by adding the dark green background.

The idea of this piece is to try and answer my question, "what media do I like best for portraits and on which surface?". The boy in this picture is Alex Graver who is in my art class. Alex has a super symmetrical face, so I took a picture of him to paint. I'm proudest of drawing the highlights and shadows, I think I did a pretty good job making them look realistic and proportional. they also took me forever to paint. I struggled with making his lips look normal although, but I focused on it and figured it out.