This piece was made to tell the story of my personal growth and change. The idea was for the butterflies to represent change, as they go through metamorphosis. The color of them also plays a part in the meaning. Blue butterflies are prominent in ideas of joy, luck, and creativity due to their bright color, however blue is also known to be paired with sadness and longing. While the portrait of myself doesn't have much going on with it, I made sure to include small details in the skin that people would often not want included in pictures; acne, scares, moles. It is meant to show the raw version of a person, in this case myself, as we not often get to see that side of people. 

I am happy with the way I was able to create the values of the skin, especially with the undertones I included. There were many aspects of this painting that I was able to learn from, mainly with the hair, as it took a few tries to get right but in the end I was able to find a new technique and use it in a way that captured the look I was going for. 

This piece was not my original idea and it was quite frustrating trying to stick with one. I had started and scrapped two pieces before starting this one. The first was also an acrylic painting, the second being a piece in colored pencils. I kept having a new idea halfway through or would end up suddenly hating what I was working on, which I did experience in this painting. However, I was able to overcome those feelings (mainly due to the time crunch I was under) and finish it. 

I wanted to be able to tell a story that includes a full body of a character but still makes you rely on their body language in order to figure out their emotions. In this piece the story is of a child dressing up as a knight, but he ends up meeting a real "monster". I made sure to make the child hold onto their sword with a tight hand and back away to show the fear they feel. If you zoom in you an see that I included the details on the hand of paler knuckles from the pressure and veins. On the other hand the "monster" is offering a form of peace to the child through the gentle hand extending out and also through the fact they are trying to get on eye level by bending down a bit. 

I am extremely happy with the way it turned out. As someone that struggles to draw backgrounds I was able to overcome that issue and fill it fully. I was able to include a combination of warm and cool values in the shadows and lighting, providing a good contrast in different areas of the piece. 

I was frightened that I would not be able to finish on time but in the end I was able to finish it and get it printed before the deadline. The flat shadow in the ground from the characters figures is something that I wish I could have worked on more to fix. Compared to the rest of the softer shadows in the piece the rigid flat figure shadow does not flow as well with the rest of it. 

The phrase "You're the apple of my eye" is one that i am extremely familiar with, having heard it used a lot in media and entertainment. I wanted to take my own approach on it by including it into the idea of an interior space, were the person being sought after is all that the admiring can focus on. In this case the woman is sitting on the bottom lid of the eye, holding open the upper lid so the seeker can only see her. I made sure to include details within the woman that reflect an apple; her shirt the color of the flesh with seeds as buttons, the red skirt and hair as the skin, even including a tiny apple brooch on the left of her shirt. 

While it was satisfying to paint the background of the piece, the struggles came with the foreshortening in the way the woman was sitting. I struggled to get the proper angle and direction of how the knees would face. This was solved with the use of a few self-taken references I could study in order to understand the perspective better.

When creating this piece I made sure to continuously use warm toned colors everywhere but the iris, using green to contrast with the red tones of the skin and woman's hair and skirt. I was able to provide a way to break up the different areas of the painting with the use of contrasting colors. 

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