Value Portrait

Essential Question: How do value and shape play important roles in painting a realistic portrait?

Purpose:

• To determine where values change when light moves over an uneven surface by using a range of gray values to paint a realistic self-portrait;

• To become familiar with the structure and shapes of the face by painting a realistic self-portrait.

• To effectively communicate an image that looks like you through careful examination of the values of your face

Medium: Acrylic Paint on Acetate

Size: 8.5” x 11”

Reflection

• Value creates 3-dimensionality. In the real world we see all sorts of values and colors. This is why we paid close attention to value in this project. In order to make our portraits realistic and 3-dimensional we had to learn and use value to our advantage.

• I’m relatively happy with how my portrait turned out, however I think if I were to ever do this again I’d try and follow the tracing better. The eyes, lips, and nose is what I struggled with the most. They look a little off along with some proportions. Next time I work on a painting with a human as the subject I will take more mind to these features and hopefully create a piece with better anatomy.

• I learned about how value and color work, especially with mixing colors. I had a general understanding of value beforehand as I enjoy doing painting in my free time. Though, I am really grateful to have been able to learn more about it and how to mix colors! I also learned more about carefully observing a reference and taking details from it and creating a painting. Painting and drawing are two different things with two different processes. However, when it comes to still lives and portraits they are relatively similar and both use value and texture to communicate 3-dimensionality.