From the Artist: This is the first time I've tried a self-portrait and I worked from a photo and a mirror. I don't think I've spent so much time with my own face at least since the teenage years! And enlarging the head so I'm larger than life... just makes me want to get a face lift.
From the Painting Guide: A series of self-portraits across a painter's lifetime can make for a wonderful body of work, so face lifts and self-portraits don't go together because there'd be no point in painting more than one, you'd look too similar in all of them.
You could of course use "artistic license" to give yourself a face lift, but really I think it goes against an artistic soul's nature to fake life experiences in that way. Just as our paintings get more interesting and detailed with experience, so do our faces. This is a lovely portrait of an individual, someone real, someone who's laughed a lot, with beautiful penetrating eyes, not some smoothed-over stereotype.
Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Composition: Have you noticed that tiny bit of background in the top-right hand corner? Cover it over with your hand and you'll see how it adds to the composition by creating a unity and a sense of the background continuing behind the head. It's tiny, seemingly insignificant details such as this that can really make a painting.
Notice how the color of the eyes has been used in the background, again creating a unity in the composition, between the face and the background. It also makes the eye color seem more intense.
Squint at the painting and mentally trace the strong shapes of similar tone you see. Notice how the dark tones of the hair and shirt frame the face. Again this provides a unity to the composition, a sense of the various elements in the composition belonging and working together.
Skin Tones: Spend some time studying the variation in the skin tones, which are beautifully painted. It's the numerous and often subtle changes that makes it seem to real. It can take intense observation to notice these changes and if you're having difficulty seeing them, try altering the lighting to make stronger shadows fall on your face.
From the Painting Guide: A series of self-portraits across a painter's lifetime can make for a wonderful body of work, so face lifts and self-portraits don't go together because there'd be no point in painting more than one, you'd look too similar in all of them.
You could of course use "artistic license" to give yourself a face lift, but really I think it goes against an artistic soul's nature to fake life experiences in that way. Just as our paintings get more interesting and detailed with experience, so do our faces. This is a lovely portrait of an individual, someone real, someone who's laughed a lot, with beautiful penetrating eyes, not some smoothed-over stereotype.
Things to Consider When Looking at This Painting:
Composition: Have you noticed that tiny bit of background in the top-right hand corner? Cover it over with your hand and you'll see how it adds to the composition by creating a unity and a sense of the background continuing behind the head. It's tiny, seemingly insignificant details such as this that can really make a painting.
Notice how the color of the eyes has been used in the background, again creating a unity in the composition, between the face and the background. It also makes the eye color seem more intense.
Squint at the painting and mentally trace the strong shapes of similar tone you see. Notice how the dark tones of the hair and shirt frame the face. Again this provides a unity to the composition, a sense of the various elements in the composition belonging and working together.
Skin Tones: Spend some time studying the variation in the skin tones, which are beautifully painted. It's the numerous and often subtle changes that makes it seem to real. It can take intense observation to notice these changes and if you're having difficulty seeing them, try altering the lighting to make stronger shadows fall on your face.