I took lots of photos to start my self-portrait, I didn’t pose or try to look good, I wanted soft lighting but still directional with some areas harshly lit, I wanted it to be honest, without forced expression, just an honest picture of me at that moment, something I could look at and see myself, my three favorite photos are below.

  

 

I liked the first one but I could only see light and dark, there wasn’t much variation within these two categories as far as mid tones go, I liked the middle one a lot but didn’t like how turned my shoulder was, so I used the third image as a body reference as I liked everything apart from how tilted up my head was.

I started by drawing out the face but for some reason, I was really struggling to get any likeness, I felt myself making the same mistakes over and over and as I was free handing it from a photo on my phone I had to rescale the face 5-6 times bigger than the reference, this is something i hadn’t done and in hindsight, I should have printed off my reference to match the size better. below is my first day’s progress

 

End of Day 1

I really struggled early on to find a likeness, I felt that I kept making the same mistake over and over, I had been working on it from about 10 one morning, till 1 that night, I don’t know why but I really struggled, perhaps it was the pressure I had put on myself to get it right, I was measuring a lot more than I usually would but wasn’t measuring properly, rather just using my thumb and a pencil to check ratio relationships between the facial features. This measuring was harmful in my opinion as it leads me to become complacent, I struggled to see what it actually looked at because I didn’t give myself a chance to look at it with fresh eyes, I had to start again 3 times because I couldn’t find the likeness but eventually, got to a point I was happy with and went to bed.

 

      

End of Day 2

I really started stong and put a lot of time into the background, I used the shirt that I associated with others view of me as a reference to create a print pattern, I thought about screen printing this on but thought that the styles would clash with my delicate mark making on the face, I was really happy with the background and felt really good about the painting going forward, I liked the composition and space around the face, I was also happy with the shirt as I achieved a good blend with the background by using the same color but with different tones to create the shadow.

I then started to paint the face, I always start with the eyes to ensure they look like they are under the skin and this was going great, I could see myself in the eyes and I captured something that I see looking in the mirror, I don’t know what id describe it as but to me it is a familiar look I give myself, a calm, honest expression that isn’t giving anything away.

Despite the success of the eyes I quickly lost the likeness, when I began painting the face I realized that all the facial features were too big, the head was too small and I saw that I was fighting a losing battle. I was painting with oils so with great sadness I had to strip away the paint. I didn’t want a mediocre painting with a mediocre likeness I wanted something that was honest, like the eyes I wanted something that is capturing a moment and truly capturing myself.

After a few days I decided to return to the painting, I started by blocking out the facial structure through tone, I made the head a lot smaller as I thought this would be easier to paint from my phone but this made the shoulders look too small. All the painting here was done with acrylics and with unusual colors as I knew it was all just underpainting but after getting to a point where the likeness was coming through proportionally I realized I was making a big mistake. The face was too small for the articulation I wanted, the eyes would look unusual if they were that small with detail, the shoulders were way too big and I would need to repaint them. I felt like I had lost sight of what I was doing and what I wanted, Rather than looking for honesty all I was doing was chasing the likeness. I also felt that the background was too bright and distracting if I was hoping to strip away all my superficial projections. I considered removing my shirt completely and having the same crop but have bare shoulders and back, but I felt this would draw attention and send the wrong kind of message. Rather than taking everything away and painting an animalistic, simple side of myself, I wanted to paint myself as I am, but without the spectacle of Joe, and so bright colors, being naked and strong symbolism would all contribute to this spectacle.

End of Portrait Attempt 1