Last week’s Life Book lesson was with Annie Hamman. Between Life Book and Let’s Face It, I have watched a lot of Hamman’s tutorials and have done most of them. I really like her style and approach to her artwork. She strikes the perfect balance between working purposefully and intuitively. While my style is completely different from Hamman’s, I do aspire to a balance between those two modes of being intentional and being intuitive so I do enjoy her lessons.
This lesson was essentially one about painting over collage. Hamman referenced the fact that we often tend to construct faces that mirror our own features and that is something I have noted about my artwork and have made mention of on this blog. I, therefore, decided to run with that idea and started with a sketch of my face (sans glasses) and then worked on the face more intuitively so that the traces of my face remained yet it was not a true self-portrait because other elements had drifted away from replicating the proportions of my face. It was me yet not me. It was a self-ish portrait.
I am making a real effort to be much more positive about my art work experiments, a little more gentle on myself, striving to focus on the successful rather than flawed elements within each piece. I will, therefore, state that I am happy with the collage background for this piece, a mixture of origami papers, washi tape and postage stamps. I was also pleased with the skin tones I mixed as I actually managed to get the shade and tones to align with my own skin colour.
A Pict in PA 
This is nice! I love how you kept the collage visible. Mine has disappeared completely 😀
Thank you. I actually almost smooshed more diluted paint over the background but I actually just ran out of time so decided to leave it and, since I actually like the collage more than anything else in this piece, I think that was a good decision.
I got carried away and almost completely covered mine… ah well…
I love the background! I also like how your faces are instantly recognisable as your work.
Thank you! I’m so pleased that you think I have an identifiable style with faces. I feel like I flip around all over the place depending on the media being used so I’m glad there are some consistent elements.
I love the idea of a self-ish portrait! This one’s worked really well, I also like that you haven’t painted over the background!
Thank you. I like that the collage remains so much too, not least because I think it’s the best bit of the whole piece.
Yay! Your background is beautiful. I love that you retained the uniqueness of the collaged papers and what a great self portrait-ish. You have already developed that style that I’d be able to recognize your faces and self portraits anywhere.
Thanks, Carrie. I’m so thrilled that you think I have an identifiable style. I’m never sure that I do.
Oh you do! The way you draw and color your self portraits has something in them that screams that its you. Your girls also has a unifying look and feel to them. The strong facial features and the way you shade and color them has a lot in common.
Thank you for that feedback. I really appreciate it.
I like this work a lot–the collage, colours and the quality of the face.
Thank you very much. That is very kind of you.