From the Artist: I was pretty pumped about this exercise, as I have done a few self portraits without any luck, but I never thought about the expressionist method even though I am a huge fan of Schiele and and Klimt.
In this painting, I painted a base wash of four parts turpentine to paint. The paint was burnt sienna mixed with yellow ochre. I wanted to achieve that flesh tone on top of the base wash to see what I could get when the two colors blended on the canvas. I drew in my reflection with a Peel and Sketch soft charcoal pencil dipped in stand oil.
It is rather "freeing" painting in this style. I am going to try out other kinds of scenarios with this style.
From the Painting Guide: Your self-portrait is indeed very reminiscent of Schiele's paintings, down to the format of your signature. I'm a great fan of Schiele's paintings (well, most of them) so it's no surprise I think this is a fabulous self-portrait. I like the slight angle on the head and neck, which adds a vibrancy to the portrait. The colors are intriguing mixtures that create fabulous skin tones in a way you just can't get with unmixed, straight-from-the-tube colors.
Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Background: Notice how the background is made interesting through the variation in color and visible brushmarks, but doesn't compete for attention with the figure. It creates quite a different, livelier feel to the self-portrait that a flat, single-color background would. (Though that one stray stroke of blue on the left I do find distracting!)
Composition: Notice that the neck and head aren't upright, parallel to the edge of the canvas, but at a slight angle. This simple thing makes the composition more dynamic, less static.
In this painting, I painted a base wash of four parts turpentine to paint. The paint was burnt sienna mixed with yellow ochre. I wanted to achieve that flesh tone on top of the base wash to see what I could get when the two colors blended on the canvas. I drew in my reflection with a Peel and Sketch soft charcoal pencil dipped in stand oil.
It is rather "freeing" painting in this style. I am going to try out other kinds of scenarios with this style.
From the Painting Guide: Your self-portrait is indeed very reminiscent of Schiele's paintings, down to the format of your signature. I'm a great fan of Schiele's paintings (well, most of them) so it's no surprise I think this is a fabulous self-portrait. I like the slight angle on the head and neck, which adds a vibrancy to the portrait. The colors are intriguing mixtures that create fabulous skin tones in a way you just can't get with unmixed, straight-from-the-tube colors.
Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Background: Notice how the background is made interesting through the variation in color and visible brushmarks, but doesn't compete for attention with the figure. It creates quite a different, livelier feel to the self-portrait that a flat, single-color background would. (Though that one stray stroke of blue on the left I do find distracting!)
Composition: Notice that the neck and head aren't upright, parallel to the edge of the canvas, but at a slight angle. This simple thing makes the composition more dynamic, less static.