Usual problem – I couldn’t sleep so decided to get up and work on another painting, except when I entered the studio, the work on the easel was almost finished and I wanted to try something new. Looked in the mirror and thought – self portrait! No make-up, hair all messy and me looking the way mostly only I get to see myself. Started around 2.00am and finished around 5.30am. Several coffees later I stopped and I think I’ll leave it as a study only. The knitted jumper is only just indicated with lines but that’ll do. Don’t know if I actually want a portrait of me on the wall anyway.
It is always a challenge I think to be very objective when painting the self – we don’t see ourselves at all as others do and tend to exaggerate faults (or worse hide them) so painting every line and wrinkle and dark circle had to be exactly as I saw them.
Wasn’t as scary as I thought posting to Facebook originally – although a friend thought I was very brave.
I thought it was cathartic!
afrasarttractions.com 
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