Self Portrait: Process Work

Over a span of 3 weeks, I slowly created this self portrait in the downtime I had. I knew I wanted to create a process post on my blog, so I made sure I remembered to stop and take pictures in the midst of my scribbling and frantic watercolouring.

This was a very personal work for me. When I'm allowed to have creative freedom, I almost always reach for darker imagery... it just feels natural for me. I still have a lot of unfilled goals in my personal life.

This work is created based on two quotes: 

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here." 

-- William Shakespeare

&

"I've learned love is like a brick, you can build a house or sink a dead body."

-- Lady Gaga

I started with a sketch, using a variety of references for myself and the birds. Before I laid down any watercolours (aka "the scary part"), I did a few digital colour tests to figure out what direction and palette I wanted to work in.

I had settled on the fourth colour test, and broke out the watercolours, laying down light washes, building up tones. I worked over the pencil lines of the sketch, giving general light and dark tones to build up the form.

After I had laid in my watercolours, I went back over the original sketch and rendered the features: hair, eyes, feathers, etc. This took quite some time - especially that hair! After most of the pencil work had been done, I went back in and hit a couple spots with more watercolour, but not much.

Finally, I scanned and pulled this into Photoshop and hit it with some Levels, but I did very minimal editing. I did also scan in subtle watercolour textures and overlaid them on the orange "bricks", which I felt gave the work a little more depth.

And the finished piece: (larger version)

{ all art in this post © erin mcmanness 2012 - please credit if shared }

"I think the most important thing for a young person starting out is that they should only try to make work that they’re interested in, and that is true and honest to who they are. If you look at the careers of anyone that’s made it or become successful, they’ve all started out making work that they believed in, that they were interested in. And they did it obsessively and compulsively, and so people started noticing. So instead of, say, catering to a certain audience or pleasing someone else they should just do work that they feel like is the most interesting to them, at the time. Even though it might not be accepted or noticed in the beginning, they should just keep doing it until it becomes undeniable."
-- from a great interview with one of my favourites, James Jean 

 Thank you for reading!

Hope this was interesting :)