Final Portrait Project

My self portrait actually doesn’t have myself in it. I drew an actor known as Chadwick Boseman. This picture shows, just his face with parts of it altered. His left eye is blue, the right eye is yellow, a section in the Nigerian flag and he has two red slashes. I wanted this art piece to communicate my culture and myself. The alterations done on his face reflects me. The nigerian flag means that I’m nigerian, the blue eyes are for being smart, yellow for successful future, and the two dashes because I do martial arts. And I choose to do Chadwick Boseman because he does a lot of films that remind me about my culture. I did not use much to create my artwork. I used, a mechanical pencil, color pencils, and one charcoal stick. When using these materials, I had to go a bit above and beyond when coloring or making a definite line because I didn’t want the colors to fade just in case they clash into each other. I would like to relate this back to the sketch that I did in my sketch book prior to my final sketch. I feel like the sketch in my book was a lot more accurate in capturing the likeness  or Chadwick Boseman, as the one I drew now, looks noticeably different. The way I created my work was simple. First I just drew Chadwick Boseman’s face on the paper with mechanical pencil and outlined where I would fill in the different marks with color pencil. Second, I colored in his face from his black hair/beard/eyebrows, to the nigerian flag, to his brown skin (I layered with 3 types of brown), and his eyes with the colors I intended. I lastly outlined the outside of his face with charcoal. The artist that I take personal inspiration from is named Lionel Smit. He’s an African artist that became an artist because it came naturally to him.

I used the hashing method to make the beard/hair/eyebrows which is important to the realisticness to the picture. I didn’t really use a new techniques, except for the fact that I doubled down on coloring. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to draw Chadwick Boseman so realistically because I don’t prefer to draw real life of anything. I would change the size of what I draw on, but I learned how to draw more realistically more than I usually do, which I guess cancels out the complaint.

Sources Cited

Frank, Priscilla. “10 Contemporary African Artists You Don't Know But Should.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Oct. 2015, <www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/contemporary-african-artists_us_56255056e4b02f6a900d59a6.>