Kennedy 1

Corrine Kennedy
Ms. Harris
MYP Visual Art 2 B1
12 March 2023
Mirror
This piece is called Mirror because it is just like looking in the mirror, even the letters are
flipped. This piece is portraying me in as much detail and realism as possible for my skill set. It
was created using only colored pencils. The goal of it was to further my realism skills with
colored pencil, as well as working on portraiture and proportions.
In the beginning of this piece, it took a while to come off with a strong composition that
used lines to draw attention to the figure. In the background of this piece, the closet and ceiling
lines are used to pull the viewers eyes straight to the main subject. Also while the subject has
more blue/cool hues and the background has warmer/red hues, the contrast between the two
added emphasis on the subject (cooler tones). Another element used was texture. In certain
areas there were more coarse (not fully blended) areas like in the background, while in others it
was almost over blended smooth to try and create a different feeling/pull attention to the area that
was different (line in the sweatshirt). Throughout the entire piece, there needed to be harmony to
allow for the subject and background to exist together and not separately. To achieve this, I used
the same base colors for both sections. This allowed for there to be a color scheme that worked
nicely together and blended well creating a sense of harmony.
This piece allowed me to grow my skills, not only in realism, but also proportions and
color theory. Since this was the largest scale realism drawing I’ve done, I was able to put in
much more detail where it was needed. Also working with the larger scale allowed me to mess
around with the proportions of key features with more forgiveness. When I was working with
the nose, my initial base sketch had it tilted up and the angle upwards, when it was actually
angled down. Since I didn’t have too much color down, I was able to adjust it easily. On the
smaller scale, something as minor as that would be much harder to fix even with little color
down. There was a downside to making something of larger scale, making sure the colors are
coherent and consistent. I found that to achieve this, using underpainting techniques as well as
complimentary colors allowed for the colors to work well together and stay consistent. Using the
underpainting technique forced me to gain a better understanding of how all the colors work
together. In this piece, I used a base painting of yellow then continued to add layers of warm
tones to further build the shadows and depth. For the sweatshirt, the base layer was cooler and
built up using deep blues and brown. All together, every aspect of this portrait was used to
further push my skills and ability to overcome challenges/roadblocks.
In the end, this piece turned out better than I thought it would considering it is my first
self portrait. This piece demonstrates my current ability to work with color, proportions, larger
scaled pieces, manipulation of the viewer, and so many other skills. It was intended to represent
one moment in time that mirrors often capture. For a lot of teen girls, looking into the mirror
often comes along with them pointing out their flaws. In this piece, my hope was to capture a
 Kennedy 2

moment when looking into the mirror didn’t come along with pointing out flaws, to show a time
of confidence, of self embrace.