Studio #3: Chuck Close or Master Artist

For this studio project we have the option to copy a work of a master artist or challenge ourselves by doing a chuck close style self portrait. This was probably one of the challenging works I've done and I'm probably going to get deducted points because it isn't really a chuck close style painting as you will later see. The media I used is acrylic paint, Q-Tips, a flat and round brush and the same sized canvas as my previous studios.

Original design or model:

The model I used for my chuck close style painting is Kim Yugyeom from my favorite Korean Boyband GOT7. The image on the right is a chuck close style (mosaic) generated by a phone application called 'Paper Artist'.

My sketch:

Once again I would like to clarify that I am not artistically inclined, however I do find gridlines helpful in making sketches, persistence and dedication is also a must and are some qualities that I had to commit to in order to sketch this 'passing' sketch. 

Progress:

I first started by painting the grid lines using a Q-Tip. After letting them dry I laid down green paint for the background. I was initially going to use back as the outline for the gridlines but I realized that the shirt of my subject was black and if I used black it won't work. It took me a while to painstackingly paint these squares and my mother also scolded me for getting paint on my clothes and the bed (and yes I like to paint on my bed).

 After laying down my green paint I started to work on the black part of the shirt before I went to the details of his face. I usually start painting with the colors that I have in abundance before using my limited resource and also mainly because I was still thinking of the colors I would blend to make his skin tone.

My progress as I painted it all completely. Note that some of the squares were broken down or merged as suggested by Mr. Wonenberg, which gave me an idea of making it look like a stained glass window or a painting on a brick wall.

 Above you can see it following through. It still looks messy but you already have a gist of what is happening. Also note that his skin color was shaded darker than the previous because I couldn't achieve the initial color I mixed and I was limited in resource (white acrylic paint). This was actually a great idea because the lighter edges in his face gave me the idea of maintaining the chuck close style (distorted-ish) or like a puzzle piece.

This is my final product without my signature. I repainted everything so that it looked cleaner and painted some areas darker or lighter to make it a stain glass feel (not really noticable). You probably notice that this shot is better than my previous shots too. I realized that if you used the selfie cam (front camera) the image looks a lot better than when you use your back camera of your phone (which is probably why selfies looks better lol).

Final Product:

This is my final product with my signature. Its not my favorite signatures because the spacing was limited and I didn't have a good brush or have a steady hand to do my signature strokes. Some parts of the signature was also lighter because I used a Q-Tip rather than my smaller paint brushes.

Reflection:
This was probably one of my favorite studio projects because I was painting my idol <3 and I was actually proud of the results. I learned that there are more ways to do things and you don't have to restrict yourself from staying into the criteria. I also learned that you can merge these squares to make different patterns as well! I also took a while painting this because I had to paint and repaint and just letting it dry was time consuming. I also had to set it aside because it was getting closer to finals week and I had back to back presentations and essays due regardless of the long breaks we had for painting class.