Sprinkles!

Finally! I was so ready to be done with this project.

The brainstorming for this project didn't follow the usual pattern... The idea occurred to me one night at 11:30.  I saw the bottles of sprinkles in the pantry, and for some crazy reason, I decided it would be a great idea to make a sort of mosaic out of the sprinkles.  I wish I had a picture to show you of the first little design I made, but it turns out that Elmers glue isn't exactly the best at keeping sprinkles in a sketchbook. Sorry.
I decided that I wanted to make a face out of the sprinkles. I thought it would be best to work straight from a picture. I found this picture on my computer from a couple years ago.

the original picture

It was perfect, since it already had the highlights and shadows kind of blocked out in different colors. I traced the picture onto a 8"x10" canvas board and filled in the color with an acrylic wash.

After the 1st day

I couldn't find sprinkles sold in separate colors, so I spent a while (read: WAY too long) sorting my multicolored sprinkles into their own little pile. Once I finished that, I used rubber cement to glue the sprinkles on one by one.
It was slow work.

A self-portrait... in sprinkles

I'm pretty proud of myself for not messing up my eyes and my lips.  It definitely felt unfinished...  I needed some way to ground it so it wasn't floating on the canvas.  I decided I wanted to bring out the blue of the eyes, so I painted the canvas with acrylic with a palette knife.  I also dropped some sprinkles  into the wet paint to add some texture.

Tada!

I chose "warped" as my theme.  My topic is "line."  I was careful while gluing on the sprinkles to follow the contours of my face so the lines give the illusion of form.  It only takes one sprinkle out of place to break the line and change the way our brains interpret the shapes.
  I'm surprised at how well it turned out. I am so ready to be done with this project and move on to the next.  I actually started to add some hair, because I feel like I kind of need it, but that will have to wait for now.