For this project, I studied and based my painting off of Afarin Sajedi. She does portraits of women with slightly abstracted features such as longer necks. She uses a lot of fish in some of her collections. She paints the real views of women that aren't super idealistic. She shows their wrinkles, eye bags, and skin textures. They are obviously still very beautiful.

I learned from Sajedi by studying her work and seeing what I would like to include in my own self-portrait. I used the realistic skin texture and eye bags in it along with a long neck. I also included koi fish in the background swimming, similar to how she uses fish in her paintings.

I really enjoyed the process of this painting. I think it is very successful. I like the distorted proportions I used along with the color scheme. Everything in it fits well together. I think the fish are the best part because of the shading and just how they look realistic. I could have adjusted the skin tones to be a little lighter in some areas. For my own criteria, I wanted it to replicate some of Afarin’s paintings, make them somewhat realistic, and enjoy the process of the painting. I think I met the criteria well.

I went in without much planning so I changed up quite a bit. I started with my thumbnail sketches and I originally would do a red shirt, but I figured it wouldn’t be unified with the rest of the color palette so I made it the same orange as the koi fish. I ended up adding ripples to the background to make the fish appear to be swimming and create more depth to the background. I made the orange colors in layers so they appeared really glossy which I enjoyed. It contrasts with the matte facial features and blue background. I chose a blue background because it is the complementary color of orange which is used in the painting frequently. I got feedback from my peers to plan it out more before starting, which I did. I worked on my painting very early on and spent all of class working on it without getting distracted. It was a long process but I think I worked very well.