A brief glance at myself

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Story and artwork from Valentin Langer

Hello,

My name is Valentin and I’m a soon to be fashion student from Germany. This year I finished my application portfolio for uni, it got approved and now I’m waiting for the day of my application exam.

Im both excited and nervous about it. Excited because I want to show what I have got and what I have learned, I want to show that I am a capable painter and and an artist in the making. Nervous because I am still self conscious about my work, I constantly wonder if it is good enough. Also this exam will in a way decide my future, I tend to not think about that because these thoughts overwhelm me quickly.

The courses of Drawing Academy really helped me not only with the tips and the videos but also in finding guidance. After school I mostly was left alone with my work so I had no way of getting feedback. And being left alone with my thoughts isn’t always the best.

So it really helped me to have a sort of teacher again and a goal to achieve.

My antomy and portraits are not perfect yet but I really want to improve. I find the human form very fascinating and want to learn and practice more the capture it better and better.

Wanting to study fashion it is really important I can sketch the human body quickly and in striking poses to best excencuate my designs. For that reason it’s neccesary for me to have great understanding of anatomy and how the body looks in detail so I can create my own simplified version without it losing it’s human-es.

The artwork I have featured is a self portrait, although some people asked me who the model was. I was inspired by “the Girl with the pearl earring” with her open mouth and focused expression as if somebody just walked in. I really like the though of that, just someone you weren’t expecting making a surprise visit. I’m holding a medalion which you can open, I wanted to gift it to someone I dated but we broke up before. So to me this painting is also kind of sentimental. Maybe the person coming is a past lover or its simply a wish they hadn’t gone when looking at the medalion. It really depends on my headspace what i see in the painting. When I look at it today I see myself having grown from the past and ready for a new challenge.

I would love to win because I’ve seen some courses for free but there is just so much more I want to learn. Also it’d feel amazing to have people vote me because the like my work.