Day One - The Beginning

I started this blog for my painting class. We were asked to find a self portrait of a notable artist whose style we admire. Then we would recreate that painting on a monochromatic palette - a palette based on only one color, using different shades and tones of that color. After we finished that, we would paint a portrait of someone we idolize, trying to emulate the painting style of the artist we chose.

Okay, so there's a basic introduction. I chose Renoir's self portrait (if you want to see it - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Renoir_Self-Portrait_1910.jpg), and decided to use red as my color of choice. As for my idol, I haven't completely decided, but I'm pretty sure I want to paint Carrie Underwood.

Today, I started my monochromatic painting. I spent a pretty long time studying the brush strokes, which are a little different from my own, and how he used his style to create shapes, depth and variation in light. I, personally, tend to have more visible brush strokes, and less defined objects. Needless to say, I'm also not used to painting people. I liked Renoir's painting because I liked his lines. Each line is highlighted specifically to bring dimension to that area. So, I started out with the hat, and got that down the best I could. I also did most of the outline of his face, and highlighted the areas around his eyes, eyebrows and nose. You can see in the painting he outlines them brightly and made certain spots in certain areas stand out more. My biggest concern is being able to get the shape of his face correctly...I already messed that up a bit. I underestimated the proportion of the rim of his hat, and of course I had to make sure his face followed the same line. Hopefully, I can pull it together and create a nice jawline that somewhat resembles the original painting. I think that by taking it little by little and focusing on small areas at a time, I will be able to make things easier for myself.