Self-portraits have been a topic of interest to me and I love watching other people do it. It has never been my subject of study but looking at hundreds of great self-portraits over the years have sparked some interest in me. I actually took on the courage of sketching a self portrait today because of 2 reasons:
- After seeing the wide variety of self portraits of Vincent Van Gogh.
- After discovering the gorgeous artworks of Jeff Watts.
The top left one is the original sketch to see if I can at least get it somewhat right before even thinking about painting it. I am a little happy with how it turned out to be and now I will sketch it out on a bigger scale. I tried some filters with Photoshop too and some of them came out quite interesting. It's always fun to gauge possibilities in any form.
I have done it once in the past using a very limited color palette for an art contest on steemit itself. Even though the art community was kind enough for it to be in the second position, I honestly didn’t feel the satisfaction of that portrait. But I am starting out with a sketch from today and let’s see where it goes. But before that, I do want to talk a little about the artist, Jeff Watts.
While watching an older video of Minnie small on youtube, she recommended watching his works. I have watched this particular video multiple times because she does some phenomenal portrait work and I never actually listened to her advice. (Big facepalm moment btw) After I watched just one video from Jeff watt’s channel, I was immediately hooked and have been digging more into his style of work. He has his own art school + online school where he covers different phases of fine arts, from drawing (anatomy, still figures, etc) to painting (plein air, landscapes, portraiture, different types of color palettes, tools, etc). Luckily I found a long video where he talks about gouache and I couldn’t get over how beautiful his way of teaching was!
The video covered everything from art while traveling, photography for art, plein air, working as a professional, time management and the idea of art in general. I mean I can really listen to him for hours because they are based on the practical side of practising art rather than just sounding whimsical. There were a few things which were on my mind for a long time and I feel some of them were addressed with the utmost ease.
Takeaways:
- Start with monochromatic colors or limited color palette when you want to experiment with a new medium (cheaper and less overwhelming)
- Do justice to a subject if you chose to paint it. (Understand it, feel it, be it)
- Taking inspiration from multiple artists to avoid “copying” of style.
- While healthy competition is important, it is also equally essential to uplift each other in the art community.
- Everybody has unique style/medium of expression, so don’t waste your time having the mindless discussion on whose is “better”.
- It takes time to balance art with other things in your life like family, relationships, take caring of your body & mind, etc but over the course of time you will get the hang of it.
- Mastery and practice goes hand in hand.
These are a few things that really struck a chord with me and it's just from one video. I am looking forward to what I can learn from his teachings and if it helps me in my gouache journey. If you guys are interested, check out the links below for his channel and website. I am sure you won't be disappointed :)
Sketching in Gouache with Jeffrey Watts
Youtube
Website 1
Website 2
Keep Creating
Lots Of Love <3