Illustrator Portrait

For my portrait, I just found a picture of myself from I think right around Christmas this past year. I live traced the image with the gray scale option selected. The picture was pretty boring just in black and white, so I decided that I would live paint it in some parts. I found a nice set of swatches that contained the cool blues that I used. I just tried to match the values the best I could. Then I just colored the letters on my sweatshirt for some contrast.

Illustrator Exercise 1

Artist Comparisons

Marina Abramovic: I have to say that I really enjoyed looking at the different portraits by the artist. She used different perspectives to captures different emotions. The ones up close give you a more personal feel, while the ones where you can't really see her face make her seem much more distant. I think one of the most effective pieces is "Happy Christmas." The title really contradicts the close up of the crying face. I also was confused by the picture "The Family I." The title makes you think of a nice, happy family, but the picture is her with a group of young soldiers.

Frida Kahlo: I really like that Kahlo decided to paint her portraits rather than just take photo graphs of herself. The first piece that caught my eye was "The Two Fridas." Upon my first gaze over the painting, I thought that it was a cool idea to make a work with two versions of you interacting with each other. Then I noticed that the two women had been connected my their hearts via the same veins. Then I saw the scissors in the left lady's had and started to wonder what exactly was going on. Is going to cut the cord? The other piece that I was confused about was "The Little Dear." I think it's pretty cool to paint your face on an animal, but I don't know why the animal is bleeding with arrows piercing it through all directions. The deer doesn't look like it's feeling the pain, despite being severally wounded.

Cui Xiuwen: Out of the tree artists, Xiuwen's portraits were my least favorite. I really enjoy the works as a whole, but I don't find the portrait aspects of the pieces to be that interesting. Only the piece "Angel No. 3" really draws my attention to the people. The other pieces have beautiful backgrounds that grab my attention, leaving the person as a mere after thought. If I wasn't really looking for the portrait, I probably would've glanced over the figures and just observed the graceful backgrounds. My favorite one is probably "Angel No. 1o." The sky with the clouds against the rigid buildings is a really nice contrast. Then the figure dressed in white pops of the page.