Week 5 - Bonus Stage

On november first was national self portrait and as you can see above this was my own submition for the day. Normally I tend to shy away from these art competitions and events out of self doubt but this time I decieded why not. I previously did make a submition around 3 years ago when didgital painting was still a magical concept to me and as social networking was nagging me to do a new one by showing my 2013 version, I thought this would be a great time to see my own growth in 3 years.

Other than the fact that I had bigger hair and I had'nt turned into a flower in 2013. It seems from reflection there has been a huge jump. In fact 2013 is around the time I was sorting a portfolio out to join this course so it seems that being here as given me a lot of room and the right community to learn and grow. Just like a pretty flower. Get it ;)

Speaking about community after uploading the non flowery version of my portrait as seen below to the net I recieved feedback from a few graduates which was very pleasant.

Both graduates gave me feedback in the form of paint overs which was much appreciated. Below is Graduate A's feedback.

Paint over credit - Alexandra Maja

Main criticisims were how I handled values. She informed me how important values are.

Get values right = easy colourinng as seen below by here paintover

After getting values right I was recommended: USE SOFT LIGHT and then PAINT OVER WITH COLOUR

Other points inclue:

• Use hard edged brushes more

• To resolve uncleaniness of painting -"get hard edged brush and erase edges"

• If you have flattened your image and background is just one colour, use hard edged brush of the same colour as background

To sum use more hard edges and get values sorted

Graduate B - Tom Duffus

Tom's - left Mine - Right

The gist of Tom’s feedback was mainly based on colour

His feedback was when using warm colours balance it more with colder colours in shadow

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This was similar to another bit of feedback I received about the hues in my original image reading too similar to each other.

Tom also mentioned I need to widen my values and also balance contrast.

Too flat push values

Too Contrast’y tighten them.

Finally it was recommended if I want to get a better idea of how to handle values “A good idea is to look at black and white photos, to really see where values fall in everyday life.”