Self Portrait

One of the hardest and easiest faces to paint is your own. If you're surrounded by relatives, you are familiar with most of your features; you might have the same nose shape as your son, eyebrows like your father, chin like your sister, mouth like your grandmother. But it's also infinitely difficult because every color and line you put in defines YOU. Your age, your health, your lack of time in the sun. You coldly observe your hair is out of place, you vainly try to make it look a little nicer than it is. The constant play of making it look nice vs cold observation is much harder when the face you are painting is your own. I was recently challenged to do a self portrait, and my dear husband posed me and snapped a photo as a guide for this painting. So here it is. Does an artist's self portrait show the talent of said artist, or does it show what they wish they looked like?