Self Portraits

Once upon a time, in college... I painted so many self portraits, I churned them out on a daily basis. It became mechanical and I knew every nuance or curve or blemish on my face intimately. I began hating painting self portraits. I avoided them. I developed ways of avoiding or bypassing self portraits. Since my college days I have had zero desire to paint self portraits. Maybe because I didn't like what I saw in the mirror. Maybe what I saw was so far away from what I wanted to see that I preferred avoiding it. Around a year ago I attempted painting a self portrait After almost 20 years of not painting one. I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror so I took a picture of myself looking away... I didn't want the self portrait staring at me... that would freak me out! So I painted from a photo and for the life of me I couldn't finish the damn thing. Eventually I gave up on it. Now I am painting another self portrait. This one too isn't looking straight at me and is from a photo, but so far it is going smoothly. I think I've been changing. So much so that I couldn't paint myself. Now I am reaching the peak of my growth spurt. My new identity is strengthening and is more established. I like what I see in the mirror now. I can paint myself now.

Images:

The first is the one I am currently working on, it's a work in progress.

The second is an old self portrait from around 1999.

The third is the self portrait from a year ago that I wasn't able to complete.