Illustration Self Portrait

Our first assignment in our illustration class was to do a self portrait. This was not that self portrait. As that was my first attempt, I was not thrilled with the result. So here I present my SECOND illustration self portrait. I'll mercifully spare you the first one. :-)

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Illustration

I was happy with this one. As with my self portrait in the style of Aaron Douglas, I have used this one as a profile picture as well. I have on occasion even used it for my profile picture at work.

Self Portrait in the style of Aaron Douglas

In high school I did a report on James Weldon Johnson, a preacher who put a bunch of his sermons in his book God's Trombones. I love Johnson's style of preaching. He was a great storyteller, and he had a way of presenting biblical narratives in a contemporary and fresh manner that held me spellbound just reading them. At the time, I was intrigued by the illustrations in the book, but as my research was on the author, I didn't look into the illustrator.

In my drawing class while I was studying design a few years later, the assignment for our final was to pick an artist from a list supplied by our teacher. Aaron Douglas was on the list. I wasn't that familiar with him, but when I started to research him, I recognized the art from God's Trombones. 

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Marker, Pen, Sharpie on Paper

Part of the reason I was studying design was because I was pondering what to do with my life. (I'm still figuring out what I want to do when I grow up.) I've always loved art and design. As I pondered how to go about art in Aaron Douglas' style, I decided on a self portrait as his art involved silhouetted people. The palm tree represents my past in the Philippines. The Space Needle represents my present in Seattle. For years I have dreamed of living in France someday, so I put the Eiffel Tower in the middle to represent a possible future, as well as a nod to my study in France in 1999. I'm in the foreground wondering and praying, shrugging and looking up to heaven to ask God what His will is. None of Douglas' drawings that I saw featured someone wearing glasses (as the ones in God's Trombones depict characters in the Bible), but I was pretty happy with the way I adapted it. He did eyes the way they are above, but I extended the line farther back to approximately where the ears would appear, were it not a silhouette.

This art is my Google avatar, and I have also used it as a Facebook profile picture in the past. It was not my only foray into the styles of artists of the past, as I also painted Mt. Rainier in the style of Claude Monet, as we have seen. I have also used that painting as a cover photo on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Self Portrait

In one of my art classes in 2011, we received two related assignments. Our professor told us up front there was a second part of the assignment, but she purposely wouldn't explain part 2 until after we were finished with part 1. Probably just as well, as these would look very different had she explained both parts up front!

For part 1, we were to cut bits out of magazines, newspapers, or anything we found online and printed, and make a self portrait collage. We could get as creative as we wanted—in fact, the more creative, the better—and we needed to pay attention to shapes, shading, and other aspects. Having grown up in the Philippines and loving their coral reefs, I decided to go with that theme. I was very happy with the result:

Self Portrait Collage
Steven Sauke
2011

Had I known the next step, I would not have made it anywhere near as intricate and exciting.

For part 2, we were given the three primary colors of paint (red, blue, yellow) and a canvas. Now we were to paint the collage! Using only those three colors, we had to mix colors and get it as close to the collage as possible. Though it turned out to be fairly complicated, I was proud of the result:

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Acrylic on Canvas
2011