January - Week 4

Written 31/01/2025, Updated 01/02/2025

Final piece!

The Nettles Do Not Make Me Bleed

The theme

If you can guess based on the title and from where the blood is drawn, I was trying to symbolise my PCOS and how it is an ordeal to keep my face hair free (and that does cause me to bleed sometimes) and the pain I inflict on myself is much worse than what nettles can do to me.

Thoughts on the process

It took me just over a week to finish it and I am NOT by nature much of a painter (I'm more into drawing) so I had moments of frustration with how things looked in the interim. I took photos throughout my process, which you can look athere

As you can see, I did a fair bit of layering which really paid off in giving the picture more depth!

Thoughts on the piece

I will say, that I was pleasantly surprised with how the final picture turned out. While layering I wasn't very confident on how things will look but it makes a cohesive whole. I also hope that my overall theme manages to come across.

There are things I wish I had done better regarding the layering - like my ears which could have been layered up more with the shading. I also wish I had planned and prepared the colours before painting rather than just winging it as that led to some things not contrasting as much as I would have liked (mainly the blood from the razor doesn't stand out as much as intended.

Comparison with inspiration

As you can see, mine is a lot flatter (and cartoonier - especially the cats!) and has less detail in the background (and I am super white!) but I think I managed to make it my own thing and not make an inferior copy of Frida's original. Like how the blood is a bigger part of mine that it is in hers (since I focused on it being on my face)