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Painting....

I wanted to try and incorporate painting into my project, especially after doing the painting workshop. I decided to use the design that I had used for my latest wood cut, which was the female face, side profile. I went and drew it out in my sketchbook, and started to paint it in a realistic way, completely contrasting the actual outlines and cartoonish proportions and design of the actual image. I used acrylics rather than oils as I prefer the quickness of acrylics, the ease of them over oils, however, I might try and use oils in the future. I tried to be as realistic as possible, using different tones for the skin and outlining the eyes and paying close attention to the highlights and shadows of the face. 

Once I had done the face and hair, I opted to do add some flowers on the bottom, going back to this idea of feminine imagery and I liked the idea of the face coming out of the flowers, so to speak. I used outlines of different flowers for reference and again, paid attention to the highlights and shadows, different tones, and thought hard about what colours I wanted to use. I wanted to use colours which would compliment each other and didn't want similar toned colours next to each other as I wanted each flower to stand out, rather than mesh in as one. I definitely think that at one point I might do a separate piece on a bigger sheet, as I really liked how this came out overall.

After some feedback, I got an idea involving painting flowers all over a page or within the size of my woodcut, and then possibly print on top of that. This is something that I might explore next. 

Overall I really like how it came out, and I'm pleased at how well the shading and highlighting had come out. There are some areas that I may go back and tweak, but I think this works well as a response to painting. 

- more painting?
- combine with print?
- collage? - mixed media?
- focus on flowers?












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