Portrait Painting + David (Artist Statement)

For these pieces, I intended to show faces in dramatic shadows. I accomplished this by only using black watercolor paint. The pieces are about dramatic shadows and interesting mark-making. The most difficult challenges I had to overcome was copying my face while looking in a mirror and free-hand painting in general. I'm not very used to painting and this is the first time I've ever done something like this. I remember getting frustrated while painting my reflection because there were some things that I just couldn't get right. I also don't like looking at my face. I met these challenges by just painting tons of pictures of myself and finding the ones where I did the best. I learned different techniques through trial and error and I actually had a lot of fun with it. My paintings really work in portraying the different types of shadows on the faces. I really like how my David painting turned out. It's strange because I actually painted it on my first try. I have learned a lot and I will implement the things I have learned into my future pieces. I've gotten a lot more comfortable with painting and I know how shadows work better. I'm looking forward to doing more painting. My mentor for this painting were other artists at the school. It's nobody specific, but I get really inspired by other people and their work. An artist in my class that I learned from is Sarah. I've mentioned her before, but I want to say that I love her work ethic and how relaxed she is. Sometimes I stress out too much over my art and I need to come back down to earth. If I had to do-over anything, I would work more on the portraits of myself. I would like to make my features more defined and improve them. I feel best about how I did the different types of shadows on the faces. I'm very satisfied with my David painting and I had fun painting it.