mixed media - photography & digital art

My mixed media genre doesn't have a one-word name - I describe it as photo-based digital art. I start with my own digital photos, and use digital technology to modify them to fit my vision for the final piece. This portrait of a young boy captures a melancholy moment. I was interested in exploring how much detail in a human face needed to show in order to effectively convey an emotion, so I drew on and reduced the detail in the image, then modified the outlines to be more angular and geometric, and altered the colors of the photo to shades of blue. I was struck by how strongly and clearly the much-simplified portrait showed his mood, a testament to the incredible expressivity of our faces.