Self Portrait

Lately, I'm fascinated by how people talk about self-portraits.  Be it photography, painting, or other, self-portraits have been with use for ages.  It's often the only way a frugal artist can practice portraiture with a live model.  When I look at some of the greatest artists in history, I'm always stunned by how often they painted themselves.  We see this especially in the European art tradition, but not exclusively.  



One of the recommendations for new artists wanting to learn to paint humans is to do a self-portrait at least once a year.  This becomes a marker of progress and changes the way we view ourselves.

I find that idea terrifying.  

I know my dark secrets and don't really want to spend any more time with myself than I have to.  I'm not good company.  

And yet... I'm kind of fascinated with the idea of self-portraits as a metric of progress and markers for where I am in this life.    There's also an intensity that self portraits have when painted from a mirror reflection.  It's something about the eyes.

Have you ever done a self-portrait?  What medium?  Photography, painting, sculpture, something else?

Deep thoughts about self portraits and self care.  And she paints pretty.

I drew myself a lot...and usually any person I draw ends up looking a bit like me, especially if I don't have a reference picture to go off of.

Most of mine were drawn in graphite pencil--I like the ability to erase and fix what's wrong with the picture.

I have one of me staring straight into the mirror. One of me crying. A lot of me in Medieval gowns that I wish I actually had. There's a bunch that are miniature and that I quickly drew. They don't look terribly much like me, but they resemble me enough for the purposes.  

Come to think of it, I guess I technically made self-portrait "sculptures" of myself when I made my little needle-felted family.

needle-felted me

Me and my family

Sometimes my self-portraits are just fun little things. Sometimes, I spend a lot of time trying to make it as accurate as I can.  Sometimes, I just want to capture an emotion or try drawing in a certain style, and my easiest-to-locate model is myself. Sometimes my portraits look nothing like me, but I was looking at myself as I drew.

I think they're fun. It's fun for me to try to improve my skills, or to place myself in another time or place. Or to draw myself and my family as, say, fairies (I couldn't find that picture, but it's somewhere). Back in high school, I drew all of my friends and myself as medieval people, just for fun.

I found two of my recent-ish drawings. They're just quick and fun. Not terribly detailed, but meant to vaguely resemble my family and me.

Below those are some of my high school sketches...from 20+ years ago. Man, I feel old! It's neat to see the progression in my skills because of all those sketches. One thing I found useful for improving my drawing, was to look at my art work in a mirror. This allowed me to spot things I was missing.

Those are stunning.   Thank you for sharing.

I love how you can take what you see and put it in a whole new setting.

Did you have to find courage to start or was it just natural to do it?  I wonder if it's because I've been an adult for too long that it seems such a big thing to try it.

And yet, we live in the age of the selfie.  Is that so different from a self-portrait?

I don't think I ever really questioned it or had to get up the courage to try to draw myself. But, I did have to get up the courage to SHOW my self-portraits to others. When I was looking for self-portraits, I ran across one that I'd started and then just erased. Apparently, it wasn't turning out, and I didn't want to look at it.

But, I was less worried about bad drawings of myself, as I was of bad pictures of my friends. It's easy to mess up some small things in a drawing, and make it look like the person is ugly, or something. The last thing you want, is to draw your friends as ugly!

What makes you nervous about drawing yourself? Maybe if you can identify that, you can find a way around the barrier?

I'd maybe start by drawing yourself in small scale, sort of like a medieval drawing. Add things around yourself that identify it as you, rather than relying on your face looking exactly like you.

Another easy first-step might be to draw yourself but not show anyone. Draw yourself a few times, and just put the drawings somewhere where only you can see them. This will allow you to see improvement, without worrying about others thinking you did a bad job.

The thing is, if you draw yourself poorly, people won't know it's you. They won't know you tried to draw yourself unless you tell them you tried to.

My profile picture here is actually a linocut self portrait I did 20-odd years ago (shoot, I'm old!)

I like self portraiture because I'm an infinitely patient model. I'll sit for as long as I need me to, and I know I'm not bugging me. Plus, I get to work in private. Models always want to see what you've drawn, but I'm really shy about having anyone see my work in progress.

Oooooh, I love the use of line, negative space, and placement in your portrait, Roberta. It really draws and holds the eye. Very nicely done!

We've been remodeling our garage to divide it into a Family Room and Workshop. My husband said, "We should put a time capsule in the wall! We can each write a letter and put things inside." I, of course, took this a bit overboard and decided to illustrate my letter with paintings of us and our animals. I used the water color paint I made with natural earth pigments and gum arabic and honey. I thought about this thread as I painted myself. This is the first time in YEARS that I've actually tried to accurately depict myself!

I found it easiest to have my kids take a picture of me, and then put a grid on the picture in Photoshop. I also drew a grid on my paper using a ruler. This really helped get the proportions and details to be more accurate (though, I did accidently lose track of where I was vertically on the grid, and I'm pretty sure my shins ended up longer than they should be!)

Raven, your work with painting 100 chickens really inspired me to try watercolor. I always shied away from it as a medium, because we had cheap water colors that bled and were hard to control. Making my own water colors has allowed me to make them a lot thicker and easier to control, while still fluid.  I really love it!

That is so fantastic.  Thanks for sharing.

Your pictures are an inspiration.

I have a bit more to learn about painting but I think I'll give it a try this winter.  I don't know why but it seems like something to do in the winter.

I don't know if this is a good thing or bad, or if I'm likely to share a photo.

However,

My first attempt at a self portrait looks like my mother.  Frighteningly so.  Only with a wonky eye.  Eyes are hard.  

(Also, my eyes are wonky heights that they have trouble fitting glasses for me, so it might be in the right place and something I need to adjust so it looks more right).

But for my first attempt of drawing (not tracing), I'm surprised it looks so human shaped.  

First layer of oil paint done.  Now to let it dry a week or two.

The Self Portrait. A look into the soul of the artists who use themselves as models, sometimes of necessity and other times by request, in each case the self-portrait is the artist looking into his own image. Sometimes critical, sometimes with sophistication, and at other times with whimsy. Yet we can see the painter as they wish to be seen. This is a look at their likenesses with the styles and personalities they sought to express for themselves.

I finished my first self portrait today.

I feel conflicted.

The good:
- it's a fair representation of where my skill level is at.
- it looks human.
- it even looks like a family member.
- the composition, although technically poor, reflects accurately how I feel about myself
- there is a chicken in it
- the values are pretty good.  Not perfect, but not horrible

The less good:
- well, I'm not going to get a spot in portrait artist of the year any time soon
- painting small is hard
- the composition and source image I choose were unpleasent and well beyond my ability to pull it off well.
- my colour matching leans too warm.  I don't know if that's an error in my artificial lighting as I'm usually mixing clours pre dawn.  Or it could just be my unconscious bias for warm lighting.   I don't have this problem as much matching from a good print out or during the day.  It's more often when my reference is on a screen or in artificial lights.  The bulbs are daylight, but not full spectrum.
- it was surprisingly emotional to paint this self portrait. I don't know why. Like poking a bruise.  I didn't expect that. At every stage, I was driven to give up.  
- i feel sad that I painted it.  I don't know why.

I kind of like the idea of painting a self portrait once a year to mark painting progress. And I can't help but wonder if painting this helped shed light on some feelings and memories that are holding me back in my art progress.

It shall sit for a while and we'll see if it gets shared or not.

A captivating video I stumbled upon this morning. Sometimes, I suspect youtube knows too much about my life outside the computer.

The first half she is talking about the emotions around her self portrait and there is a lot there I can relate to. Not many people share that vulnerability when talking about self portraiture. The second half is her painting process which is interesting to see that style.  

Although now I've watched her paint, I can see the same perspective error in my practice.  3/4 profile is hard.

I posted the process and the painting in my 100 chickens fan club private forum

I don't recommend you go see it.  The more I look at it, the more horrified I am with my painting.