In my spare time I really like to explore drawing and painting my own face and body. I really struggle with getting likeness in portraits and feel that this may help a bit. I like to explore themes of transness and the struggle of being trans in my own experience in a lot of these works.
Frida Kahlo Inspired Portrait for Art History
I feel like this is probably one of the only self portraits I’ve ever done to really capture my likeness without transferring a sketch from a traced image. I didn’t have to redo the sketch a million times and the likeness carried through to the end, which doesn’t often happen for me. The background was a definite struggle and I still don’t like it very much, but it works as a background. This was for a group project with my friends Kelis and Cat. I’ve started experimenting with Sakura Koi watercolors for more realistic skin tones since they’re very different to work with than my usual Schmincke palette.
Self Portrait in Watercolor and Acrylic Gouache
I really struggled with this piece, as likeness is very hard for me. I eventually got a sketch I liked and it was looking promising in the first few washes of paint, but it got very muddy very fast. Honestly, I hated it. Eventually I decided to try and fix it, and went back with acrylic gouache overtop. I think that, though it isn’t entirely cohesive, this helped a lot. I feel like the strongest point is the hair, which I didn’t need to touch up with the gouache.
“Never Enough”
This piece is a self portrait about how, even after getting top surgery, I still struggle with gender dysphoria. It seems that now that my main concern wasn’t there anymore, I just found more things to be self conscious about. I attempted to use the grid method for this one, though the proportions were still very off so I digitally fixed it in the final. The original on paper still has weird proportions, but I don’t think it looks bad. I painted in blue and red first and then added the yellow to add more interest. This work is entirely in watercolor.
“Freedom”
I made this piece after getting top surgery, and though it was technically for a class, I view it as a very personal work to me. At this time I was finally feeling like I was able to go out and be confident in my skin in just a tshirt, rather than needing to wear oversized sweatshirts to cover myself up. I painted this with watercolor and added accents in colored pencil.
“Stretch”
This is one of my only oil paintings, since I didn’t really have the space to do any more. The sketch was done in paint which I almost never had done before, so it changed a lot since that step. I tried the grisailles method and liked it a lot, and have since started implementing it in my watercolor paintings in a similar way. This painting is about my struggle with sensory issues as an autistic person, and how sometimes I feel like there’s something else in my skin.
