Painting a Self-Portrait

Just because we are really familiar with our own faces doesn't guarantee that painting your self-portrait will be easy.  But there are a couple of ideas that might make it more successful. Today I took a canvas with a lot of history, that is to say there are probably three paintings under the surface.  last week I painted the canvas a washed out yellow and collaged on some newspaper strips.

This morning I took a few photos of myself with my digital camera and loaded them onto my laptop, playing around with the exposure allowed me to easily see the light and shadow.  I did a small sketch on paper and then used the sketch and the photo to draw out the portrait on my canvas.  Here's the critical part: do not begin to paint until your sketch is really how you want it.  To check that it is, hold up the canvas in front of a mirror - the mirror instantly shows us where our drawing errors are.

For my self-portrait I wanted to use a lot of colour.  I used cool colours to indicate the shadow and warmer ones to indicate where the light hit the face.  I'm always surprised how assymetrical my features are and while it is tempting to make my eyes the same size and shape as each other I would then lose any likeness to my own pleasantly crooked face.

I also wanted to make sure that I left some of the newspaper to show through and play a role in the painting.  I forced myself to work quickly and remain loose so as not to get too caught up on perfecting details, a little mystery goes a long way in a painting.

After a few hours this is what I ended up with:

I allowed some of the newsprint to show through

I layed colours beside one another and avoided blending them.

Not bad for a morning's work.  If you try this method I'd love to see a photo of your self-portrait painting.  You can always e-mail me at sandra.myturquoisekettlelife@gmail.com

Thanks for stopping by My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Have yourself  a wonderful day,

Sandra