The Ying to my Yang

Over the past week our assignment was to paint the shadows of light and dark for a self portrait. My goals for the assignment was to make my art come to life and to have my look rather than look exactly like me. I don't feel like I fully accomplished my goals. I really wanted my art to have a more realistic quality but I feel like my artwork lacked that. But I did accomplish have my artwork having my look rather than looking exactly like me. My painting was about the contrast between light and dark. The Ying and Yang. I believe that everyone has a bright side and a bit of a dark side. I used the contrast of the black charcoal and the white chalk to give this look to my work. The most difficult challenge for me was placement as well as realism. I constantly had to redo where I had placed my lips because my measurements were wrong. I also wanted to get more details in my look and make it seem more real than flat. I met these challenges because I eventually got the placement of the lips right. Although I didn't really solve the problem of realism I do believe my art has my look. My painting really works in the eye. I really like how it turned out and felt that was the most realistic part of my artwork. I learned from this experience that I can use different techniques to get good measure and placement for my art. I also learned that not everything has to be real, that sometimes abstract is okay! Heather was another artist in class that helped me figure out how to get the placement of my art down and she kept me from ripping my paper in half! The thing I fell best about is my ying and yang. I feel like the contrast between the light and the dark is mysterious and very abstract!