Starting this project wasn't easy as I never go into a painting project with high expectations. I've been constantly working on my painting skills and I plan to sharpen them more, and this project was a big step for me. I plan on working on my painting skills more over the summer and I want to become a good painter as that is something I always wanted to improve on. I plan on finding a good artist inspiration and following a certain technique and using my time to experiment with different things strokes and lengths for my brush. The planning of this project wasn't a hard process as I already knew exactly what I wanted to do and what artist I wanted to utilize to create my painting. 

      If I could go back, I would put more effort into planning the project. If I could have better predicted how the paint would look on the canvas and how certain colors would look on top of certain areas, such as the white over the gesso, I would have changed some things. I would have changed how I made the face and the hair making sure it not only resembles me better but is more proportionate making it more aesthetically pleasing overall. I also would have drawn my image out and projected it onto the canvas before-hand instead of free handing it. That would have allowed me to make my figure look more proportional and be able to compare it easier overall than just drawing it with my pencil straight onto the canvas. I also could have placed a grid over the canvas to make the strokes and the lines sharper and cleaner making it look overall better and more professional. I should have started and stuck to a plan from the beginning rather than make it as I go. That would have allowed for more straight-forward mistakes rather than coverups and just an overall mess. So if I were to do it over again, I would grid it out, chuck close style, citing him as an inspiration, and plotting out the details around the canvas. I would make sure it looks right before painting and make sure all the details I would like to be included are included. The concept and general vibe of the piece are still going to be the same for me. Since acrylic is easy to paint over, I want to see how I can change this piece and fix any problems with it in my free time this summer going into senior year. 

     Some things I liked about this project were my strokes for the background. My black background was well done and the strokes were nice and dark as well as parallel to each other ensuring that they flow well and present the main figure better, not distracting from the main course.  That being said, the main course needs to be absolutely excellent to go with an absolutely black background like that. I also think I could have done more with the background, maybe adding more and changing up its plainness making it more exciting maybe. 

     I learned a lot about painting and craftsmanship when it comes to painting. this was my first time using acrylic paint on my own so it was a completely new experience for me. I have used paint in the past but not on such a large scale and in a completely different way, and my unsuccessfulness in that discouraged me generally from making artworks that involve painting. I, however, decided to instead just embrace my weaknesses and work on my painting skills. I had used little canvases before to make small painting replicas in my sophomore year art class, but never really caught on to the art style always having bad experiences with that. but I personally believe nothing is held back from me and I am able to do anything I want if I try to do it my own way. Art is very fluid and really has no boundaries and I plan to use that to my advantage in my art making something special and personal to me to really blow the crowd away. After I am done working on this project I will have hopefully created a new painting ability fo myself and really discovered my own talents, and hopefully, that will be visible in my progress over the portfolios in the future.