Tangled

Thoughts

When I painted this, I was struggling to explain myself and how I was feeling. I felt like that inability was pulling me down to someplace murkier. I started out drawing a self-portrait in pencils and then wanted to convey what I was feeling. It took many different mediums to create this with layers of watercolour, pencil, ink, charcoal - almost anything I had around me. As I added more textures (and mediums) I felt this piece coming to life. Looking back at it, I can feel the slimy tentacle things crawling over my skin and constricting me.

For a while, when I was not using a reference image, I could only draw people with their mouths covered or obstructed. Looking back, this makes total sense as I was struggling to talk about my own emotions.

Process

I began using watercolour pencils to draw a self-portrait but felt that I couldn't complete the mouth. I used watercolour crayons to draw on the tentacles. I then went back and washed out the whole piece. Using alcohol-based ink, I drew on the swirly lines on the tentacles. Then returning to the face, I worked on one side with colouring pencils to add detail. Next, I used charcoal to make the darkest blacks in the background and shade in the right side of the face. Finally, I used a gel pen to add highlights over the tentacles to make them seem wet.