Oh no! Not another self-portrait!

I'm sure one of my latest projects has made my level of vanity look like it has gone through the roof. But, in my defense, this self-portrait wasn't my idea. I took a week long art class this summer and the creating a self-portrait in the style of Chuck Close was one of the assignments. It's true, I have done this assignment before (see here) and enjoyed the end result, but this version was slightly different because it is three-dimensional and utilized elements from the camp where the class was held.

 

There are three things that I am pleased with in this painting.

 

One: I'm happy with how the underside of the birch bark could pass for my hair.

 

2. I like how that little amber coloured stone looks on the bark. It reminds me of Jurassic park. "That rhymed...unintentional." 

The third element that I like about this is the colour of the green shirt. In highschool, I remember trying to achieve that colour with tempera. It was excruciating because I could never get it right.

What shall we call that colour?

Channelling Chuck Close-Self Portrait

Chuck Close is an artist that I am studying. I used his later work to inspire this self portrait.

For those of you who have never heard of Chuck Close, he is an artist who earned his claim to fame by being a master of the photorealist painting on a massive scale. All these years I thought these ginormous paintings were photographs, but they were actually paintings. For example, the black and white portrait on the back wall in the photo below is one of these realistic paintings. You can find it at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts.

In 1988, Close suffered from a spinal artery collapse which paralyzed him. He continued to paint on a large scale, but he has since had to adapt his style. Now he paints portraits focusing on one block at a time. The result is stunning.

Here's an example of his later work featured on wikipedia:

For those of you who have heard of Chuck Close, I am sorry for the inept biography I just presented.