"Save the parts that don't matter."

Blogging to save my sanity. A new painting has me so frustrated blogging is my respite.

However, I am so so pleased with the outcome of my first painting on this identity project. My peers have given me so much good feedback and even Virginia told me that the face was painted very well! I am very happy with the overall appearance of the piece and really enjoyed creating something new.

I am still pleased with the way the grey background creates this grungey atmosphere where the character is just standing. It plays off the black and grey of the clothes well and I like the way the skin on the face stands out in front of it.

My new painting has the same background at the minute. I have had suggestions about making the background extremely girly (because this "identity" is the glamorous girl version of myself) however, I want to stay away from the gender stereotypes because the project is trying to tell the audience the complete opposite of that. So grey is what I have as a starting point, and if I have more ideas on the subject I can change the colour when/if I want to. I have also had suggestions for the opposite. Paint the background of the boy "identity" bright pink and the glamorous "identity" something more masculine. I think that's a good idea but I am still unsure of how I would like that personally. Considering the identitys are me I am just considering keeping the greys running through the whole series and let the focus come onto the portraits standing out from the grey.