Use this presentation slide template to summarise your Summer Assignment 2014

Your visit to The National Portrait GalleryTo get inspiration for my portrait I visited the BP Portrait Award in the National Portrait Gallery.

I did these four observation drawings of my favourite paintings within the exhibition

I used a variation of fine liner and pencil to quickly sketch the paintings while in the museum.

Geoffrey Beasley

Jason brooks

Javier Palacios Rodriguez

A study of a portrait painting

Toby Mulligan• Toby Mulligan’s Portrait of his daughter, 'About Time, was selected for The BP portrait award 2012. It was hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in London throughout the summer and is currently in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

• The portrait is of the artist’s daughter, Anais, who lives in France with her mother. The portrait was made in the morning on the last day of her recent visit to her father in the UK. Despite having attempted the subject previously in oils, this small acrylic painting seemed more successful to Mulligan.

• Oil on canvas -495 x 400 mm

• Painted in 2012

• I really like how he has used green and much stronger colours than a normal brown/peach coloured skin tone.

• This is my study of the painting.

. Practical study

This is the painting which inspired me for my portraits. I tried to use the same colour palette and the same composition of the painting.

Practical study

Finished portraits

Summarise your study of the work of others - portrait painting

Toby mulligan has used a very limited palette to create this painting. Although this girl looks young, he has painted her in a mature, sophisticated way.

I like the way her eyes are focusing at something as opposed blank so it makes it look much more real rather than a frozen, lifeless picture. The girl looks like she's thinking, or almost wondering. The slight frown in her expression could support this. This also makes the painting more intense.

Mulligan has used colours within the face to show the contours and the shadows, exaggerating them to create more dimension within the portrait.

He has used hues of the same colour palette in the face as in the background, this has been done to emphasise the colours on the face.

I think Mulligan has used colours to show the characteristics and energy of the sitter, rather than a direct likeness in the same way it would be used in German expressionism.

Your opinion and an evaluation of the self-portrait project

I found this project really interesting however it was challenging. I enjoyed visiting the Portrait Gallery and drawing quick sketches of the paintings. Although this was hard to do I felt it made me a lot more confident when it came to drawing myself for my own portraits.

When I found Toby Mulligan’s work on the National Portrait Gallery website I was instantly drawn to the colours and the intensity of the women's faces which he had drawn. I really enjoyed working in his style and creating two artist copies. When it came to creating my own portrait I did a lot of preliminary studies of my self from pictures to experiment with angles and to practise drawing my own features. I wanted to use poses which would be suitable to Toby Mulligans paintings therefore I chose one directly face on, and one slightly turned. I feel these have worked well. When it came to painting my face I found it challenging focus on the shading and the shape of my face as I had never painted directly from a mirror before. This is something I found hard, however as I had already done an artist copy of Mulligans, I found it useful to use his techniques of shading and adding dimension to the face.

I felt I used a thinner consistency of paint than Mulligan, however this was my preference as that is the style of painting I prefer. I tried to use the same colour palette as the picture I took most of my inspiration from, and I feel I have succeeded in that. Overall I am really pleased with the result of my self-portrait, although it was challenging I feel I has given me a lot more confidence in drawing and painting in other artists styles.