Splat: A Self Portrait

 One of the best and worst things about having a creative mind is that so many things and people inspire me to have a BOAT LOAD of ideas! The works by Igor Gellert and John Beckley, for example, inspired this piece, even though I'm not a fan of self portraits (this being my, technically, second one and my Starving Artist technically being my third 😂).

Splat Self Portrait

    Spray paint has always been an interesting medium to me but I'd never used it before. So, after purchasing MANY of Liquitex's acrylic spray paint (water based, so no stink!), I decided to play around with them. I'd seen the GORGEOUS portrait murals that some spray paint artist had made online, but, they're HUGE! They're on walls, on the sides of buildings or even on entire stretches of roads. My "canvas" was limited to a sheet of 22X28 poster board 😂. So the size was the most intimidating part, both because I wasn't sure a spray painted portrait COULD be that size, and because I've never made a portrait THAT big before. Everything else would intimidate me later 😂.

    I started with, of course, the background. And I didn't really have a clue what I wanted to do for it at first. Some of Igor Gellert's and John Beckley's works seemed doable for someone of my skill level, and I had bright colors in the spray paints to make it look nice enough, so I decided to just go abstract too and see what happened. 

    While I enjoyed just randomly spraying the different colors on the poster board, it was a challenge for my "perfectionist" brain 😂 I think that's true for the majority of artists who don't regularly dabble in the abstract lands. Might have to force myself to do an Abstract Series of DOOM or something in the future 😂. I honestly do like pushing myself outside my comfort zone now and again. This was definitely outside what I normally do, mostly because of the spray paint. My next hurdle was somehow transferring my photo reference (that I took when I was 17 and in college 😂) onto the poster board. I didn't want to freehand like I normally do, because I worried that any mistakes I would erase would also erase or damage the paint base. 

    Not wanting to make a BIG sheet of tracing paper to sketch out and then transfer the image, nor wanting to risk damaging the background by making a grid on it, I decided to DIY a projector and sort of project the image onto the paper so I could trace it outright. Here's what I came up with!

DIY Projector

    First, please ignore the messy studio/dining room 😂. Now, what I decided to do was to take a sheet of acetate and trace the image off my computer screen with a sharpie marker. Then I took the top of my DIY light board* and wedged it between the top and bottom vertical adjusters (the things that hold a canvas in place while you work on it 😂), then adjusted the easel bar to a horizonal position. I stacked up some random items, including the drawer from my French easel that I pulled out so the French easel could be clipped to the edge of my desk and hold up the poster board securely, then used my small tripod to hold up my phone (not in the picture of course 😂) that would act as my projection light behind the image.

    Of course, I had to turn off ALL the lights in order to do this effectively, which was ok because it was already dark outside anyways. At first I thought I'd use white charcoal pencil to trace the lines, it being freaking dark at all, but the charcoal pencil 1. didn't like going on the paint, especially the drippy parts, and, 2. the WHITE charcoal didn't show up on bright colored spray paint. … So I went with a regular pencil which worked out great! 😂 Once the lines were all traced over, I turned on the lights, broke down my rig, and rested my aching back on the couch for about an hour! 😂 I'm too old for art. After my restup, I started with the next most intimidating medium/technique I'd be using for this self portrait: painting with washes.

    Washes are something I've only ever really used for quick background coverage, not something to actually paint an entire thing with. With that, I thought a basic watered down acrylic wash would work out, but, always paranoid I'll screw things up and have to start ALL OVER, I decided to research washes first. Let me just say, there are ALOT of different recipes for DIY washes and there are many pre made washes too. But I have a rule I've set upon myself for the past year or two: I can't buy new supplies until I use up the HOARD I have currently. So, buying washes was a no go. I had to make my own AND I had to use what I already had on hand. Groovy. 😑

    But, how hard can it be right? I have acrylic paint and I even have acrylic ink, making a wash with either of these shouldn't be rocket science! 😂 And, honestly, it wasn't. Since I only needed black, I didn't have to do a whole lot. I mostly made two different washes: acrylic+water and acrylic ink+water. The only thing that would trip me up while using them was the acrylic black I used was a lighter black (I think I used mars black, but don't quote me 😂) compared to the acrylic ink, which was carbon black. Both were liquitex brand, so I wasn't worried about some sort of chemical reaction or battle of the wills to go down on the paper. 

    The tools I used to spread the wash around, however, weren't just brushes (I think I used maybe one or two legit paint brushes for the smaller areas). I actually used a set of blending brushes I had purchased at the grocery store in the makeup isle (I honestly got two sets; one for wet mediums and one for dry mediums 😂). They came in hand and made some interesting marks too that I hadn't even planned on, much finer than a paint brush I think. I also used a car sham cloth for smearing and blending the wash.

    For the final touches I used Posca Paint markers, mostly black, white, and metallic silver for parts of the headphones. I also outlined parts of my hair, lips, eyes and little details here and there with the black Posca just to help give that abstract meets pop art look I was also going for, but not too much because I had NO IDEA what I was doing (and still don't 😂). What's he was all done, I sprayed a clear coat over him and TADA! An ugly self portrait of my younger, yet still ugly, face 😂😂. Only kidding. I know I'm cute! 😁

    I hope you enjoyed my Splat Self Portrait and were inspired to try out one or ALL of these techniques/tools in YOUR future projects! If you do, tag me on social media so I can see YOUR creations! And please feel free to let me know YOUR thoughts on this piece. If you would like to challenge me, please check out my Contact Me page, or, if you'd like to purchase one of my works or a work of your own design, check out my Commission page.

Till next time MMP fans! 

*(I had taped a pane of glass from a picture frame onto the outside of a screen printing frame, of course removing the actual screen from the frame, and made duck tape hinges to attach to a plank of wood from an old desk, that was already painted black, and attached LED string lights on the "inside" of it. It is pretty handy!)