Blinds

I had wanted to experiment for evening light for some time and had thought of using blinds in my
next idea, however I didnt have any blinds at home and there werent many nights that were clear
with a sunset. To be prepared I decided to make my own blinds that looks semi open, so I took some
old newspaper and divided it up into long strips being about 10 sheets thick as to block out all the
light. Then I cut out the strips and taped them together. Unsurprisingly simply sticking the
newspaper onto the window had no effect as the sun had to be directly shining onto them. I had to
wait until there was a moment when I could see a shape of pure light shining into a room which
faces the sun. One evening there was a warm sunset with a small orange patch of light shining onto
the wall in my parents room; so I stuck my strips of newspaper to the window in a way that they
made bold stripes shine onto the wall. Next I got my brother and my dad to take some photos of me
whilst I stood into the light looking out of the window experimenting with different expressions.
However I wanted to take the photos myself as I knew what I wanted to achieve best. I increased the
shutter speed by adjusting the settings and took time to get the perfect picture of my brother. The
adjustments were perfect allowing the lens to absorb the warm colours of light onto his face! Having
some of the best light I had seen yet in my whole exam preparation and having found the right
settings I gave the camera back to my dad and got him to take a few more photos of me, just so that
I had a variety to choose from.
Because I liked one of the best photos so much I was considering saving it for my final piece, but
then I thought that I could still use it to practice my technique and see if I could get the desired
effect using the warm colours and contrasting segments of the face. I decided to square up some A3
paper so that it was the right scale for my painting and started painting the face. I was using oil
paints and it was working reasonably well, however I thought I could get an even better effect and
deeper range of colours, so I though back on my previous development and remembered that I had
considered using a full set of watercolour pencils alongside my paints rather than just a pencil for
definition. This technique worked tremendously well creating a smooth and vibrant effect on the
face. I particularly used the pencils on bold highlighted areas of the face for examples reds are used
on the contours of the nose and the left hand side of the face binding the dark with the light. They
improve accuracy on the eyes and eyebrows on a relatively small piece. It was hard to choose what
sort of balance I wanted between the strips as I wanted them to look like the face flowed through
them whilst having enough contrast for a dramatic effect. I think that I could have been more
adventurous and increased the contrast slightly because when close up the strips are not obvious,
however if you stand away from the piece there is clear definition.
Being pleased with the result of the face I wanted to get the shirt to look as photorealistic as the rest
of the piece knowing that I normally find clothing difficult to paint. I decided to increase the ratio of
watercolour to paint so that I could create crosshatching effects for slight texture but all keep
building up layer upon layer until I had what I wanted. The outcome was much better than I
anticipated and unlike my previous portrait of myself did not wash the colours of the face out. This
was a success. All that was left was the wardrobe and then the black shadow to the right hand side
of the head. Once again I used more watercolour pencil than paint adding to texture and building up
layers to try and get a realistic effect. After the first panel the rest of the wardrobe became routine
and soon later I had finished my piece.

I was extremely pleased with the outcome and I have decided to use the photo on an A1 canvas for
my exam. I feel like I have found what I was looking for after all the development and
experimentation looking at colour, lighting, texture, technique and media. My only concern for the
exam is whether I will be able to use pencils onto the canvas; I might need to put a support behind
the cloth so that it isnt damaged by pressing down hard onto it. I am also conscious that I will have
use a slightly cropped version of the photograph as it is not long enough to fit onto the A1 size,
knowing that a rectangle will suit the portrait more that shortening the length to a perfect square.

An idea came upon me that having pictures of both myself and my brother I could try and combine
the two photographs into one hybrid image. So I decided to look at the artist Ulric Collette who is a
photographer and graphic designer. He splits faces of relatives vertically and then combines the two
together. I thought that rather than copying him it would be a good idea to use the guidelines
created by the strips of light to split our faces up. Looking at my brother photo I thought that it had
better lighting and he was straighter on to the camera, therefore I chose to use his photo as a
background layer on photo shop building upon layers of my photo to create the mixed piece.
I started with the nose selecting the area I wanted with the Magic lasso tool and then copying and
pasting it onto the photo of my brother. Then I chose the Free transform tool to manipulate and
rotate the segment so that it fitted onto his face. This did not look realistic having different lighting
and a clear edge between sections, so from the select menu I clicked on Refine edge and altered
the smooth, feather and contrast sliders whilst clicking smart radius. Next having my new layer
selected I changed the contrast and brightness manually and then clicked on auto colour so that the
section matched up with the background layer. Next I removed small sections from the new layer
with the Art history brush and then blended edges and created shadows and highlights with the
burn, sharpen, smudge, blur, sponge and dodge tools until the section fitted. I then repeated
this process adding my own eyes and hair to the piece so that there was a balance between the two.
Finally I adjusted brightness, saturation and contrast to the whole piece until I could get a relatively
successful image.
I was content with the success of my new image, and even though it looked like a completely
different person to me other people could not tell what was what with the three images looking at
either mine of my brothers photos and asking things like, Is that one half and half?, when it was
simply a photo of one of us. Bearing that in mind I decided not to use my new image as my final
piece as the idea would not be clear and people would just think that it was one person. I also
thought that people who knew me would just think that it was an inaccurate painting of either me or
my brother.