An Eye for an Eye
There will be no image today. I'm just not prepared to post it.
I spent 7 hours on trying to do my very first self-portrait, with no prior skills or ability to do this.
It is going to be quite the process for me. I started with my eyes, and then had to contemplate the bags under my eyes. It's only the first layer, in all in raw sienna, and I think I got the position of the eyes okay, but still - because I am far from putting in highlights yet, I look like I have an eye disease. My nose is too big, my chin too fat - do I sound like I have body issues??
I won't care if its realistic - that's hardly a goal I can harbor on my first attempt, but I do hope there is *something* of me in there so that I'm recognizable at the end.
I did my face and upper torso (without hair I looked like a cancer patient), then added the shape of my hair - again, all in raw sienna and I'm going to stop there and let it dry (it is oil) and contemplate my next stage.
I knew it was going to be hard, on many levels - which is probably why I have always been afraid to attempt a self-portrait. But I'm all about facing down my fears and now some under-developed facsimile of me sits there all in brown for me to contemplate this week.
I look forward to seeing what I learn and how I feel at the end of this project, though I suspect I won't be going into the portrait business any time soon!
I think I'll shift back to safer and familiar painting territory tomorrow. But I like when I get in the mood to shake things up and do something I've always avoided doing.
Technorati tags: art , oil painting , self-portrait
I spent 7 hours on trying to do my very first self-portrait, with no prior skills or ability to do this.
It is going to be quite the process for me. I started with my eyes, and then had to contemplate the bags under my eyes. It's only the first layer, in all in raw sienna, and I think I got the position of the eyes okay, but still - because I am far from putting in highlights yet, I look like I have an eye disease. My nose is too big, my chin too fat - do I sound like I have body issues??
I won't care if its realistic - that's hardly a goal I can harbor on my first attempt, but I do hope there is *something* of me in there so that I'm recognizable at the end.
I did my face and upper torso (without hair I looked like a cancer patient), then added the shape of my hair - again, all in raw sienna and I'm going to stop there and let it dry (it is oil) and contemplate my next stage.
I knew it was going to be hard, on many levels - which is probably why I have always been afraid to attempt a self-portrait. But I'm all about facing down my fears and now some under-developed facsimile of me sits there all in brown for me to contemplate this week.
I look forward to seeing what I learn and how I feel at the end of this project, though I suspect I won't be going into the portrait business any time soon!
I think I'll shift back to safer and familiar painting territory tomorrow. But I like when I get in the mood to shake things up and do something I've always avoided doing.
Technorati tags: art , oil painting , self-portrait
Labels: art, oil painting, self-portrait
posted by KatieMoe at 3:23 PM
2 Comments:
...and you can't squint, because then you'd have to paint yourself squinting!
How true!!!
And if I squinted, I could avoid painting in all those "lines of experience" I am contemplating now. But then when my painting was done, there I would be squinting at the world, and that is definitely NOT what I would want my first self-portrait to communicate (though given all my resistance and ACKS during this process so far, it would probably contain a lot of truth to it).
It sits on my easel and every time I walk by it, I get this sudden *oh!* feeling. unexpected. Every time. I don't think I've ever experienced myself looking back at me quite like this.
It's going to be an interesting process on many levels.
But today, as mentioned, I'm going back to a safety zone and painting a non-representational horse in an abstract painting I'm working on.
But there I also sit on the easel, all in raw sienna, watching over everything I do...
Post a Comment
<< Home