For this piece I took a photo of a classmate and redrew it in marker and pen, using a very different selection of colors and trying to add as much detail while keeping it colorful and spirited. I like to add colors that I feel reflect the mood of the picture fairly well because I feel colors are a great help in creating a certain feel.
After my quick sketch was completed I decided to take it to the canvas, but I wanted to make sure every color was present and represented, so I began my work in layers. I like to use swift, hard, strategic lines when I paint instead of precise angles and shapes. It makes my art feel more relaxed and less structured than most. The layer below were the colors I found to be most prominent in the photo and the rest I believed were shading and highlights. This helped me create a base of color and help visual my final piece.
At this point I added some dark blue to give more depth to my piece and creating more contrast to this painting. I like this color pallet a lot and find myself using more than I intend because of how well everything seems to fit together. For the highlights in this piece I used whiter brighter versions of the colors I used to darken it up so that they just looked brighter and not completely different. After I finished that I thought the background would need something less structured so I drew scribbles with very watered down paint and continued it throughout to give a more airy light feel while still giving it some color.
I took great care in adding as much detail into the features as possible because the most emotion is displayed through the facial features and body language. I also wanted to accurately represent my friends as I saw them to help me better myself as an artist.
Overall I think this project has been extremely successful. It shows the beginning of my breakout of regular constricted colors and helped me focus on my strategic line placement and color choices. I intend to continue feeling and representing emotion in my future pieces in just as interesting a way as this one.