A Painted Face

Over the past couple months I've been working on my self portrait using the method of tempera batik. Here's a link I found that describes tempera batik- http://www.juliedunnfineart.com/content/view/46/94/. I worked for a long time on a substantial painting/portrait of myself. Right off the bat I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this assignment. The more I worked on it I found out it was pretty interesting to see if the finished product would look like me. The picture I decided to use for this assignment was a picture of me smiling pretty straight on. The most difficult part about this project was the painting. The paper we used was rather thick so the paint seeped right into it and dried quite quickly. It was hard to figure out how to shade with paint. All we were allowed to use was the color we created with black and white added to it. The black paint making your custom color darker and the white paint making it lighter. I found to be using more of the white than the black, but the black did come in handy, especially with the shadows of my face. Once I finished the painting part I inked it. I was hesitant to ink. All that work on the painting and now i have to cover it up with black ink?! I knew it had to be done though. Once the ink dried I rinsed it off and then went back into my portrait with colored pencils. I only used four colored pencils to achieve my finished portrait, a shade of purple, tan, white and black. My favorite part of this whole process was working on my teeth. Sounds kinda weird huh? Well it seemed to be that I was the only one who had braces in the portrait. It surprisingly wasn't that challenging for me to draw and paint them in. I think they give my portrait a unique touch. While it was long, tedious journey, I am exceptionally happy with the end result.