At age 20, I had already seen many artists' self portraits and I was inspired to try one of myself.  Even at that young age, I started working directly from the subject and used a mirror, rather than a photograph.  Apparently it bothered me that the entire image was reversed.  You will notice that I corrected not only the hands, but also, the part in the hair.  The handling in this portrait is much to "tight" and you'll notice as I matured as an artist, my work became freer.
   

At age 40, you'll see that I became daring enough to throw half the face into shadow,  and said "artist" by including a partial painting in the lower section of the painting.  I refer to this as BB period "before the beard"

 
   

At age 60, The third portrait was done as I'd become more involved with pastels and the handling  was much loser.  As in all my self portraits, I tried not to glamorize the image too much.  I didn't want people to look at it and think that I looked in the mirror and saw a handsome movie star looking back!

 
   

At 80, I was so busy doing commissions, I couldn't get to my own self portrait.  At age 83, Jack Richeson, art dealer and friend, asked me to do a demonstration at a trade show using his wonderful pastels.  While many other demonstrators were doing landscapes using photographs, I decided to finally do the long overdo self portrait.  I used a mirror and daringly used lighting on a small section of the face; something I would never do on a commissioned portrait.  (See first photo above)
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hit Counter