Art History Self Portrait

My class was asked to make a grey scale self portrait drawing using a photo reference. After, we were to make a background for the piece that relates to and art history movement or artist. My chosen artist was Alphonse Mucha. The subject of my drawing is myself and the background of circle-y plants. First, we had to choose a photo of ourselves to reference, then print it out and grid it. Once we were finished with the self portrait, we had to make thumbnail drawings of what the background could look like, then actually draw the background. I used pencil for the self portrait part, watercolor for the background, and a sepia fine liner for a little line work.

The composition of this drawing is quite basic, I didn't try to do anything too crazy. However I did make the plants come out of the box to make it look more interesting. I made the background color a very saturated red and I felt it stood out a lot and took attention away from the plants. So, I decided to paint the plants gold to create emphasis on them by using a glittery color that stood out from the matte finishes. I used a primary color scheme (kind of) with the yellow toned gold. I feel that it sort of creates more unity within the drawing. I also lined the plants and the out line of myself to emphasize the forms a little more. My project did change as I didn't think of using this color palette at first, since I don't use a lot of bright colors usually. However I thought it would be fun so I went with it.

There isn't a meaning or story. However it does relate to my life as the background is inspired by Alphonse Mucha, one of my favorite artists. I discovered his work maybe around two years ago and I was really drawn to his use of circles and round shapes. I am most proud of the design of the background as I feel it's an appealing composition and I like how it looks. I think the thing I struggled with the most was the values in my face and hair. I really wish I could've "chunked" my hair out more instead of simplifying it to on big mass. I think it would've looked better if I had defined the big pieces as the reference photo shows. If I were to revise this, I would clean up the line work as it didn't get messy once I started painting, and maybe add more values in the face and hair.