Thank God it's them instead of you.

After experimenting with the idea of placing myself into different situtations through my painting I decided to push myself even more. This entailed using oil paints on a bigger scale and in monocrome, something that I have never even thought about before. The reason I chose to do this painting in monochrome is because when I was researching the homeless and photographers there seemed to be an awful lot of close up, harrowing shots of homeless people in severely saturated black and white.

Initially, I drew up my painting and began painting over it. However, I realised that my eyes were strange and so had to change them half way through painting. The good thing about using oil paints is that it's much easier to change the paint or takeaway some paint that you hate. This made this painting a lot less stressful that it would have been to paint with acrylics and although I do like acrylics, when I paint with them now I miss the fluidity of the oils.

I found it easier to paint the texture of the jumper, scarf and hair with the oil paints. Hopefully it looks effective and realistic. Although I paint in a realistic way I always want something a bit different within my paintings, something slightly off that makes them a painting and not like a photograph. Within this triangular composition I feel like the skeletal hand and the use of the black and white brings another quality to the painting. Something otherwordly, not in a way that makes me sound big headed about my work, but in a way that makes the viewer feel uncomfortable when they look into the eyes of the subject.

Personally, of the semester this has been my favourite piece of work. I think I have progressed with my painting and skill within my painting and maybe that is why I like this piece.