Self Portrait Covered In Blood
Size: 4 ft by 4 ft
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Completed: April 2021
This piece stems from 1970’s feminist/body art. Ana Mendieta often used herself as a subject for her art. She would work with blood to get her message across; her work often ties to violence against women. Self Portrait Covered In Blood is based on her photography, featuring myself with blood dripping down my face. It follows the footsteps of what Ana Mendieta and other feminist/body artists brought to the world.
Inspiration
My inspiration was Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood) by Ana Mendieta. Ana Mendieta was a 70's artist and photographer. She was known for her photography, using herself as a subject. She would usually cover herself in blood, dirt, or plants and try to transform her body into something else. She took up painting, then switched to photography because she didn't feel that paintings could capture the realness she wanted her work to be. Many of her works are ritualistic and relate to Cuban culture. Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood) is meant to depict Mendieta as a sacrificial victim.
Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood) by Ana Mendieta, 1973
Mendieta was known for using blood in her work. She used it in Rape Scene after hearing about the rape and murder of a student on her campus. She covered her whole body in blood and leaned over a table to make it seem as real as possible. She also has covered herself in blood and then rolled in feathers several times to become a human bird and represent her Cuban culture. Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood) was inspired by Gunter Brus and Rudolf Schwarzkogler intended to portray martyrdom within Roman Catholic iconography.
Mendieta is known for manipulating her face in other ways as well, such as with adding facial hair and stretching fabric over her face.
Mendieta is known for manipulating her face in other ways as well, such as with adding facial hair and stretching fabric over her face.
Sketchbook Page, Sketch of Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood)
Planning
From the beginning of my planning process, I knew I wanted to manipulate my face, meaning I wanted to add, take away, and/or change my appearance to give it meaning. I have used Ana Mendieta as inspiration before, so I was familiar with a lot of her work. I chose Untitled (Self Portrait With Blood) because I liked the roots the piece had to feminist art. I was also drawn to the use of blood as a way to give shape to my features.
I took several photographs before deciding that this was the inspiration to use, mocking the subject of art pieces I was interested in. I liked the simplicity of the head tilted back in Mendieta's piece, so I recreated it as a sketch to get a feel for the proportions and such.
Finally I edited the photo I had taken to match the lighting in Mendieta's. I added contrast and a yellow hue, and darkened it a little. Then I was ready to start on the painting.
Sketch from photo
Unedited photo next to edited photo
Process/Experimentation
I mixed a lot of colors for this piece to get the result I wanted. I originally started with a yellow background, but I painted over it with the green color I made which I liked better. The hair and skin were several different shades in order to incorporate all of the colors. I experimented with many different colors and mixed many colors together that I ended up barely using. It was all part of an experimentation process, which eventually brought about my final piece.
I sketched a general head and neck shape and then started laying base colors down. I wasn't doing much shading yet, and I also wasn't worried about the facial features, I planned to sketch them out over the flesh color. I ended up changing this shape a lot throughout the project to make it more proportionate, so it began as a guess-and-check sort of project. The most challenging part was getting the head shape right. Because it was such a large canvas, you have to make big changes in order to actually alter something. I'm used to smaller paintings and making small, quick changes, so I had to adjust and practice zooming out and stepping back to make sure my progress was proportionate to the whole piece.
After laying down basic shapes and colors I was ready to start on the hair. I started here because I wanted to get a feel for shading on a large canvas, and I felt like I could mess up on the hair and fix it easier than I could fix up a mistake on the facial features. The hair was actually the most tedious part because there was so much shading that took place, I was also just starting to grow familiar with the canvas so everything took a little longer.
I added the shadow color on the neck and shaded the shirt black. I didn't add much detail to it because I wanted the attention to stay on the face.
Next I added the facial features. I started with basic shapes, then mixed colors for shading, going from light to dark.I also blended the neck. When I stepped back to look at my progress I realized that a lot of things were off proportion, like the head shape and lip size. The shading on the left side of my face was choppy looking. I paused here to make a few quick changes and make everything more proportionate.
I painted over the lips and re-made them to be longer. I also made them sit higher so the head looked more tilted, which was another thing I had wanted to fix. I fixed the head shape, and I ended up doing this again later on. I was mostly happy with the facial features, and noticed that I had taken on a shading style made up of hard shapes of slightly different color, giving the illusion of a smoothly shaded image.
I shaded the lips with brown and a reddish pink color I mixed using pink and brown. I stepped back again to look for things that were off proportion. I still wasn't happy with the head shape, and by making the lips bigger I realized that the head shape wasn't the whole problem, I had made the features too small overall. It didn't look alarmingly off, but it definitely wasn't realistic. Not willing to start over, I tweaked some things; making the eyebrows longer, adding shading to the nose, and making the eyes bigger.
I mixed the color for the blood by combining brown, pink, black, and my own bright red paint. I was happy with the color turnout. I tried to lay out the blood around my face similarly to how Mendieta had it on hers, because I had no other reference. I also shaped it so it would highlight to form of my face; curving at the cheekbones, becoming thin at the end of my face, and dripping down my neck. I also added patches of semi-dried blood. I tried to make it look asymmetrical. Finally, I added highlight colors to the wet blood as well as the lips and eyelids, because they had particularly bright highlights.
Critique
Similarities:
- In both pieces, the subject is posed in the same way, with their head tilted back slightly. This makes the blood on the neck more visible and helps it to flow a certain way to make it more interesting to look at - Both are self portraits portrayed by adding to the subjects. Both are close ups to make the facial features more visible - Both pieces have a similar composition with a point of focus and a simple and plain background to enhance the point of focus |
Differences:
- The pieces have different contrast, Mendieta's with more and mine with less. You can see more color, shading, and line with mine while Mendieta's has intentionally dim lighting - They are different mediums, Mendieta finds her best media to be photography, where I prefer painting to express myself - My piece has a more diverse color pallet, Mendieta's is more simplistic to avoid drawing away from the main idea |
Reflection
I am impressed with all that I have learned from creating this piece. Now that I have more experience with painting on bigger canvases, I am inspired to use them more often and improve my skill. I am happy with this piece, though there are some things I would like to change, the most important being the proportions. I think the facial features need to be bigger and the head needs to be a little smaller. I would also like to experiment with shading the blood more to give it more depth. I would also give it a more personal meaning. I found this painting exciting to make, I was always eager to work on it and add more to it. If I had more time to put into it, I think it would have turned out a lot better. I think one of the strengths in this piece was the shading in the hair. Although it is not as symmetrical as I wanted it to be, the shading is some of the best hair shading I've ever done. Overall I am proud of everything I put into this piece and excited to work on projects like it in the future.
Bibliography
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-rape-scene-t13355
\n
Balshaw, Maria. “'Untitled (Self-Portrait with Blood)', Ana Mendieta, 1973.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1973, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-self-portrait-with-blood-t13354.
\n
Balshaw, Maria. “'Untitled (Self-Portrait with Blood)', Ana Mendieta, 1973.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1973, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-self-portrait-with-blood-t13354.