For this assignment, we were tasked with doing a style study of an artist and doing a self-portrait in their style. I chose to look at Matt Hughes. Now Hughes’s style is very based on the art nouveau movement, especially that of artist Alphonse Mucha. Now Hughes created his own version and refers to it as Gothic Art Nouveau. I have always loved this style of art but this is very much more illustration-based style rather than painting so there was very much that challenge of trying to achieve the same effect with a different medium. For my main reference photo, I used this card from the Tarot deck that Matt Hughes created.

main reference photo

I decided to do an underpainting in a warmer tone to be able to build the skin tone. This painting was very hard for me to do, mostly because trying to match the skin tone and also create a more illustrative style with paint was difficult. I am proud of what I created, but I know that if there was more time I could have added more details.

under painting of gold details and skin tone
first layers of color blocking
last few layers before adding details and lines
Final Product