Hi Sonja! 18/11/2011
How are you? Did you enjoyed you holiday a lot? I’m writing you to tell you about my self-portrait we made in the art classes. Your art skills are much better than mine but I’m just wondering what you think of my work. It was my first time I painted a self-portrait. I even never draw one before. So I was really wondering what would be the result.
The way we had to make our self-portrait was based on the work of Van Gogh. The way he painted his self-portrait. First we had to sketch ourselves. Than we could started to paint. I’ve made two painting. In the one I tried to give a happy expression and the other one a serious expression. The background of the drawing is really important to show your expression. So to give a happy expression I used the colours blue, yellow and green. You had to make sure you didn’t mix them to much because that is what Van Gogh did. In the other drawing with the serious expression I used dark blue, red and purple. I’m quite happy with my backgrounds. The reason why I wanted a happy expression and a serious expression was because that is who I am. Sometimes I’m very serious but I can also be very happy. After I finished my background I started with painting my face. The hardest thing was to show the expression on your face. For this I tried to use shadows but it was so hard. You can see it in my drawing that it went a bit wrong.
I like the one with the dark blue, red and purple background the most. Our cloths had to fit with or background. So you had to make sure you don’t have really happy cloths and a serious background. That is why I used the colours dark blue and dark green. It was hard to mix the same colour as your real hair because it is a bit impossible. I am pleased with my hair colour because it took a lot of time. The skin colour I have in the drawing is much better than in the other one. I don’t know what went wrong with my eyes and lips in the drawing where I was meant to be happy. They give a very serious expression. It is still a mystery to me why that one is so bad. I really don’t like it.
It was nice to do and I enjoyed it a lot. I hope you like my paintings. Please give me instruction how I can do it better next time. Did you made a self-portrait before?
I hope to hear you soon!
Yours,
Claire
