Painting Greek Poses in IB Art

My name's Jenn Summers and I'm a student in Ms. Cauble's IB Art class. I'm a beginner and have little experience This painting was made with acrylic paints on a canvas panel. It was my second painting and I was trying to make the pose appear like the famous Greek discus thrower. James McDonald posed for me and I photographed him and used it for the colors. I gridded a black and white printout to draw the outline with. What was really funny about this painting was that it started out as a drawing. Ms. Cauble got me a canvas and I was sitting there for three days trying to shade a detailed drawing. Then, she came by and mentioned that canvas was for painting only. I took the drawing home and painted it one day while listening to the radio. My favorite part of this work was the jeans because I think the shading came out really well. The hardest parts were the face and the rack in the background. The face was really dark because it was in a shadow and I am still not really satisfied with how it came out. The rack had stuff in it that I tried to draw--badly. Ms. Cauble and Mr. Davis were really excited about the painting and were shocked that I did so well. Which surprised me, too. So, now I am going to paint another Greek pose piece pretty soon.