Student Spotlight: Breielle - Art Two

Up Close & Personal: Watercolor

I went from approaching this prompt at a more abstract angle, but I ended up taking the prompt literally and used a 'personal' and 'up-close' photo of myself, which I proceeded to create through watercolor and colored pencil on watercolor paper. This specific picture of me also represented emphasis very well, because all the other colors except for the bandana were muted. 

The process of painting this was very frustrating for me because it seemed like I couldn't get it right. I am pleased with the results, however I feel like I should've done better during the drawing stage. One thing that helped me a lot was the opinions of others. I tried to look at it through a mirror by suggestion of Mr. Sands, and it helped me to "look at it for the first time" and realize that I should have fixed it a lot more during the sketching process.

I almost decided to use all watercolor instead of any colored pencil, but I quickly realized that colored pencil gave a lot more depth and made the painting look more "edgy" than it did prior to application of the colored pencil. I am a lot more pleased with the painting now that I worked on it and put as much as I could into it. I would have been very upset with it if I left it without the shading that it really desperately needed. 

The "Student Spotlight" posts are excerpts taken from our student blogs. 

You can see more of Breielle's work on her blog here!

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