my artwork

Long time no see!! I've been super busy lately - although its been really occupying, one of my favourite things this year has been completing my Advanced higher Art folio. I was given a lot of freedom with my project and it was great to explore different areas of portraiture. I decided to focus on a theme of 'Disturbed Minds', hence the angsty portraits you will see below. I took inspiration from several artists from Vincent Van Gogh to Cara Thayer & Louie Van Patten who I found on tumblr! I'm really proud of my finished work so I thought I would share my process with you all.

First I did some simple sketches and poses, then moved into some more detailed monochromatic studies. I experimented with both white and black paper to try and test myself with tonal control - drawing on black paper is so time consuming and takes so much concentration but I think the ultimate effect is really cool! Inspired by Cara and Louie I then moved into colour and dramatic close ups, using a mix of acrylic paints and coloured pencils.

I can't believe I used to be scared of paints...I <33 acrylics

This is my final piece inspired by Cara and Louie. It's the biggest painting I've ever completed, using A1 paper. I wanted to experiment using really intense colours to create a painting that was both realistic but still expressive. It's one of my favourite pieces of work! I wish I timed how long it took me so I could complain about it, but this piece was a work in progress for so many weeks there was no way in hell I could have kept track. This portrait was chosen to be displayed in our local museum for a showcase - it was so cool to see my own work hanging up in public - although it felt kind of weird, like that one time my selfie came up on the board in English class a couple of years ago, except this time it was intentional..

This marks a weird transitional stage where I was really interested in line and had way too much fun creating these squiggly portraits (I wish I was Nikos Gyftakis) This style naturally led me on to explore Edvard Munch, king of morbidity. It resulted in more stylistic portraits which was something I had never really dared to do before!!

Basically Munch was really into the theme of death, so I took a really literal approach and photoshopped skulls on to my face, then created undead Kirsty. It was so fun. In my large final pieces I decided to go crazy expressive which was pretty unheard of for me, and it felt pretty great to let loose and paint with no guidlines or preliminary drawing! LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE

Finally I decided to go for a more classic approach and took inspiration from my main man Vincent Van Gogh (I know I'm totally cliche.) His paintings were characterised by their symbolic use of colour and visible brushstrokes creating swirling patterns. I tried to emulate this, except I used oil pastels because I'm an amateur (and who really has time to use oil paints???)

This brings us to the end of this year's artwork! Even though I'm going to study English at uni I really want to keep going with my artwork because it's been a big part of my life and something that I can always return to if I'm stressed or fed up. I'm really proud of my work this year and just wanted to share it all! I hope you enjoyed it. Now my exams are over I'll hopefully be posting more on here too!