Self-portrait

This was the last project of the semester for my 2D design class. The goal was to create a self-portrait from a photograph and paint it using a split complementary color scheme. And like the last post stated, we were also allowed to use white, black and achromatic gray.

A split complementary color scheme takes a color and splits its opposite into the colors that fall immediately on either side of it.

I used red as the primary color of my design. Then, I took it's opposite, green, and split it into green/yellow and green/blue.


I used the green/yellows with white and black for the the middle and lightest tones on the face. I then thought it would look interesting if I used a flat, desaturated red for the darkest darks on the face.

I used green/blue with white and black to detail my sweatshirt. This, in turn, made it look very minty and separated from the face. It seemed the colors in the face and the colors in the sweatshirt caused a lot of tension. So, to create more unity, I used the lightest colors of the sweatshirt as highlights in the face.