Self drawings in the digital age. Self-portraits are a centennial theme for artists; taking a digital selfie is the new generation’s favorite pastime. While the selfie is all about the superficial appearance, self-portraits are helpful to an artist for many other reasons. The subject of a self-portrait is always at your disposal so that, at any time, you can practice cool drawings and painting your head with infinite variations of poses and lights. You can play around with distortion, expression, and rendering without worrying about the model’s sensitivity.
Some artists are interested in expressing a political point of view. Others focus on self-disclosure. Others want to propose new ideas and techniques using a familiar image. Each artist must create at least one self-portrait. Comparing traditional self-portraits with influence from digital media and photo direction treatments can create creative turns on this classic statement.
Take a selfie
Start by taking a selfie. If you have a Mac workstation, you can use the Photo Booth purpose. It uses the computer’s built-in camera and has a delay function so you can take various poses. Some PCs have built-in cameras; For those who don’t, you can purchase add-ons. I prefer to use the fantastic camera built into my smartphone for its portability and flexibility. It allows me to change the lighting and the angle of the camera. When headphones are connected, the cable’s volume control acts as a shutter button, making it easy to record from the jack.
A tablet like the iPad allows me to take selfies from additional exciting angles. You can also use Android devices and, of course, a standalone digital camera. Digital devices provide instant feedback with no waste or cost restrictions, so click and delete with abandon! Try different lighting situations and poses.
Save the original photos.
There are many applications for manipulating photos. Most are designed to run on an iPhone operating system, which runs on Apple iPhones and iPads. Some applications work with the Android platform, and others work with both. All iOS apps work similarly, so understanding how to use the various apps becomes intuitive. No manual is needed. Regardless of the platform you use, experimentation is the best way to learn. To keep your experiments stress-free, archive the photos and variations you want to keep. Then make changes to one of these images by importing a copy into your application. This way, you will not lose your initial image.
On the iOS platform, some applications automatically save your images to the “camera roll”; others save ideas in the application itself. In the latter case, be sure to keep on your camera roll as well. An image inserted into an application from the camera roll is a duplicate; the original remains intact on the camera roll. It means that you can make changes to your heart’s content without worrying about losing the original image.
Eliminate clutter
After selecting an image I want to work with, I like to remove distracting details in the background. The application I use for this is called Touch-Retouch. I find a neutral area in the environment and duplicate it using the clone tool, replacing unwanted details.
Collected
You may want to explore different styles using the cropping tool. If you are using the in-camera editing function, remember to create and save a duplicate of the original image first. Then cut out the copy. You may want to crop your image in various ways.
Side
I like having an image of my subject’s coloring book line because it lets me see the main shapes and lines without distracting value and color. Any paint program, like Procreate, will do it. Import your image into the application and add a new layer. Choose a drawing tool from the application and adjust the size of the mark to a thin line.
Then, using your finger or preferably a pencil, draw around the shapes and lines to create your design. You can climb in and drive the image as required. Tap the “layers” icon and deselect the layer with the original photo. Now you will only see the lines you created on a white background. If the image is finished, save it to your camera roll. If you’ve lost some areas, reselect the photo layer, turn on the lines layer, and complete the drawing. Then deselect the photo layer and save only the line drawing.
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Experiment with courage
Value is an essential element of design. The Value Viewer app will easily split your selfie into a Nōtan or a three-value image (refer to image 3b to continuation). By moving the median value lighter or darker, you can change the light / dark pattern. Save all the variations that interest you.
Explore color and texture
Now is the opportunity to play with tone and texture! The complete application that I know of is iColorama. It will also enable you to improve the image’s shape, size, and direction. I am constantly looking for new ways to work with this application. Send your photo, and then try various filters. You can make separate edits to the original image or add improvements to an edited image. To continue editing an already edited image, tap the “apply” icon, making the edited image the new default. There are several photo manipulation applications available. Most of them are inexpensive.
They all have similar modes of operation, which can be learned through trial and error. It’s fun to take a saved, edited image from one app to another and then change it even more. You can see some of my experiments in pictures 4a to 4d. Whether you use photo manipulation apps extensively or sparingly, I recommend treating digital images for inspiration when painting your self-portrait rather than slavishly copying edits. Digital devices can help generate ideas, but the creative application of those ideas is up to you.
