For my first ever painting assignment at UCSB, we had to research a known artist and create 2 paintings emulating their style. When the project was introduced I had only one thought, “Pac-Casso”. I wanted to combine Picasso’s unique portrait style with Tupac Shakur. I have always found Picasso’s warped portraits really interesting but I had never done a portrait that wasn’t realism. It was a fun challenge that I think I learned a lot from.

In this painting, I really wanted to stay true to Picasso’s style. I identified the connection of the eyes and nose, the angular shapes of the face, the thick brushstrokes, and bold black outlines as key details of Picasso’s portraits. Once I got my plan, I went in. Choosing the colors was easily the biggest challenge for me, Picasso often paint with untrue colors, but I wanted to stay true to Tupac’s blackness and his pride in his blackness. So I stuck to a brown skin tone and used red, blue and purple as the main colors to do so. I’m very pleased with the final outcome.