Self Portrait -- Step 3

Painting

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Painting

Self Portrait: Step 3

An illustrated, step-by-step demonstration of a self-portrait painting.

Related Self Portrait Resources

• Self Portrait Demonstration
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 1
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 2
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 3
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 4
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 5
• Self Portrait Demo: Step 6
• Why Artists Should Paint Self Portraits
• Figure Painting Class: Face Proportions

I continued working with the raw umber to add more form to the eyes, nose, and eyebrows. Nothing was done to the mouth, which remains the vague suggestion created in Step 2.

I widened the neck, which was far too thin, using a thinned wash of unbleached titanium – you can really see here how usefully opaque it is.

I stepped back to assess what I'd been doing. The proportions of the right eye (right as you look at the painting) and eyebrow were well out – eyebrows extend beyond the corner of the eye. And I needed to take another careful look at the shape of my eyebrows, given that I'd depicted the one on the left as going up and the one on the right curving down.

If you're going to paint without a careful preliminary drawing, then you need to be prepared to rework parts of a painting time and again. To regularly step back and look critically at what you've done. Nothing must ever be 'too good' to paint over. All too often it's the very piece you're so pleased with that isn't working with the rest of the painting.