22 Self Portraits

Wherever I go....there I am!

I’ve always made self portraits. Not many, but one or two every now and then. It always seemed to be a good way to check in. I was only in my mid 20s for the one below; it’s on stretched canvas 20 x 26 inches.

In my teaching years I’d often do self portraits as demonstration pieces, and then students would follow a similar method, sequence, procedure and medium to do their own self portraits. A lot of skills development happened this way.

For the one above and below, students would be asked to use a mirror, with pencil first, then India ink and brush, then acrylic to block in. I also added collage in the last stages for the work below.

For the piece below, students had to build their own small cradled panel, and do a self portrait without any visual reference…entirely from memory/invention. Each day new things had to be added, and old things had to be removed, so the face had to go through large dramatic changes. It was a way to avoid becoming precious with the image. Collage and acrylic was used, plus students had to figure out a way to frame the piece unusually. In this case, I used sheet metal hammered and nailed in to the cradled panel. We kept a lot of things for mixed media in the studios.

I still do things entirely from invention sometimes, regardless of what subject I’m working with.

I make many small pieces that I sell inexpensively as fridge magnets. These self portraits are done with a mirror set up in front of me, and gouache paints on paper. The paper is later trimmed and collaged to small panels, and the whole piece is varnished for protection.

And sometimes these images are just pencil. If you ever get artist’s block….GO SMALL!..there is such a sense of freedom in making things this size….2.75 x 2.75 inches. You can tell yourself it’s insignificant, and that it doesn’t matter.

I’m often making visual reference for these, using a mirror, but the general idea is more of a Slash And Burn approach. Think Oskar Kokoschka, George Grosz, Chaime Soutine……where the artist looks at the model, but a visually accurate rendition is not the whole point. Something other than appearance seems to be addressed as well. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what…perhaps call it emotional temperature.

Sometimes these little things are so simple and quick. I like the idea that making art should be as easy as breathing. It’s not always this way, of course, but it helps to court the idea.

Doing small things is also a great way to encourage oneself to experiment with methods. In the one below I painted on top of drawing media and then scratched in. I try to do anything I can to find a suitable surprise.

The fact that YOU’RE ALWAYS THERE!! is a great reason to do self portraits, provided that you still want to deal with the human race, and the concept of the individual, in some way.

It is an interesting exercise to try to…..Not Try. Again, the aim is to find the greatest ease in the activity.

I’ll often make paintings upon thin papers previously coated with acrylic paint and left to dry. These paintings are later trimmed and collaged to Stonehenge paper or gessoed masonite panels. This is again a way to try to make painting an almost automatic activity. I usually make such pieces later in a session, after a first piece is already completed. Inhibitions and expectations are down….so more freedom naturally informs the activity. The whole thing becomes less precious.

The one above is on a small cradled panel. At any point the whole piece could be sacrificed and wiped out. So it’s always a search to find something worth keeping.

The 2 pieces above are encaustic paintings on thin birch plywood panels. Encaustic is a wonderful way to work and I do it in the summer, outside in a protected setup by the pond. I’ll say much more about encaustic at a later date.

Spring is here and soon it will be warm out. So maybe this year I’ll get to the encaustic paintings more quickly than I normally do.

I paint daily and list everything promptly to my sites below. Lately I’ve been enjoying building and framing work in float frames, so I will be showing those pieces at the Buckhorn Arts Festival. I’ll mention more about that as the time approaches in late August.

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