These are the self-portraits I did on my partner’s book. It consists of acrylic paintings, permanent marker drawings, and paper cutting/collage.
I did the portrait on the right-hand side by painting the face and the flowers beneath it with acrylic. Then I glued plastic flowers found in used clothing to create a flower crown. After that, I cut out pieces of plastic sheets to create wrapped plastic from a bouquet.
This is the final piece of the project. We glued 12 pop-up cuts that are a combination of my portrait in my partner’s book and my partner’s portrait on my book. The pop-up cut is done by each folding 2 different portraits into half and cut slits on the folded area in different sizes and shapes and attach it together. After that, we glued the attached pages of my portrait and my partner’s portraits onto the 18″ by 24″ Bristol papers. We had to tape another Bristol paper because our work is too large. We decided to arrange each set of portraits in different orders to make it more interesting. To make each set of portraits appear connective, we drew lines using colored Sharpies and connect the portraits. The lines were inspired by the New York subway map. This links with the idea of places and where we are right now vs. the portraits and drawing of other locations.
Although it is not clear in the photo, each cutout emphasizes specific parts of the portrait to make them more stand out. For example, the pop-up cut from the second picture highlights the leopard pattern that covers the face.
Some of the pages are very thin and are easily torn. Therefore, I glued it with Bristol paper to support the paper when cutting and gluing the pieces together.
Our books are of different sizes, and some portraits are drawn in different sizes as well. To be able to include the whole face I had to align the bigger piece with the smaller page and cut it to match the length. After that, I fold each the pages to do the cutouts. Then, I attached the two pages together and folded the page with longer length like a card to hide the leftover space.
These 2 books are what is left over from the project.
I really enjoyed working on this project because it involves a lot of mixed media works. It is interesting to create artwork in a book, but it is also very time-consuming. I was able to learn more about my partner’s background and our similarities about the idea of being away from home. If I could go back and change things, I would try to include more mixed media within one portrait. I would also want to arrange the final piece into a line because it is easier to understand how it connects and appears neat and clean. Moreover, I wish I had made the pop-out cuts more complicated because I think it is too simple and it would create a unique effect on the portrait.
