I have begun creating the portrait to sit inside my sweet sugar frame, and i am not truth be told an experienced painter but in this project i am trying all manner of new things, especially as its my first politcal related piece of art, so i decided that i would step out of my comfort zone of drawing and pencil work and try working in a medium i have little experience with. I am using acrylic paint on canvas, i coated the canvas with a layer of white gesso to stop the paint sinking in and to give me a clean background to work with. I began by sketching out my design, ensuring i got a good likeness to Kim Jong Un, but after all the practice i’ve had during this project his face comes quite easily to me now. I then drew out the background, i began by painting the face, because i think this was the hardest section and required the most time to be spent on it. The painting took around 3 days to complete because i wanted to let layers dry and build up heavy layers of colour in order to get bright pop candy colours, quite flat in colour also. I found the face went quite well, i achieved a skin tone that i was happy with, but i was quite nervous of adding shadows incase i ruined the skin tone so it doesnt have as many dark aspects, but i believe this works well with sugar coating his image and making him look rosey cheeked and shiny. I admittedly did not enjoy the painting aspect of this final piece as much as creating the frame and the sweet animals, but i think this is because i found it quite stressful and challenging, but i feel it has helped me to improve my painting skills which was the aim, and to be honest the aim of this project was to hone my artistic skills and improve my conceptual thinking which it has done quite alot. I went on to add details to the background and finally some candyfloss coloured clouds. I enjoyed moreso painting the little details of this piece and especially the little gingerbread house, that has turn up corners on the roof the way korean houses do. i added a few 3D sweet elements to this piece to tie it in with the frame and overall i was very pleased with how most of the picture came out, of course i am still critical because this is not a medium i am accustomed to. I think if i were to do the project again i would take a few weeks to do this as a large scale, detailed drawing using coloured pencil, which i think would look more lifelike and realistic compared to my painting now.
below are the progress images from the painting:
Megan Cox--- Contemporary Fine Art 