self-portrait

December 1, 2012

Dear Anouk,

The last couple of weeks, we had to paint a self-portrait in art class.
Did you find it difficult to paint yourself? How did your painting work out? I’m really curious to the end result! After we had to make a sketch, I started to paint it. I think this was a difficult task but it turned out well.

After having finished the sketch I started thinking which expression I wanted to show with this painting. We had to stick to the Van Gogh style so I searched for paintings of Van Gogh to look how he did this. First we had to paint the background. You had to choose three colours to express your emotion. I chose black, red and yellow, with these colours I wanted to express stress and anger. I used fast and furious brush strokes. I am not an anger person but sometimes I just flip out. I don’t like that and therefore I thought it was a good idea to express myself not only from the good sides. The second thing I did were the clothing. I used the same colours and brush strokes to make a sweater. After this I went on with my hair and skin. The skin was a very difficult task! I just couldn’t get the right colour. But after a while mixing different colours I had just the right colour. Also, I made shades for the nose and chin. I didn’t had enough time to paint the mouth and eyes, so it looks a bit scary.

The question with this assignment was “who am I?”. I think I have very well expressed the bad side of me. Even that I don’t like this side. I hope you agree with me and that your painting also turned out well.

Lots of love,

Laura