Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. ~ Oscar Wilde

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. ~ Oscar Wilde

Ah, but in this case, I am both the artist as well as the sitter. So, as the current beliefs say, these portraits are even more revealing.

I started out with a self portrait I would never have guessed I would have the courage to do. Or at least, the courage to do and show. I was inspired to bare the reconstructed breast, while it is still in its WIP stage (Work In Progress). I feel it is representative of the fact that both the breast, as well as my life, are works in progress. I bared the breast, but kept my face hidden. I was playing with the idea of being both naked to the world, and yet hidden. A friend helped with the title, Life In Progress, because as she put it, "you are not only a breast".

Life In Progress

12 x 18

Pan Pastel on coloured Strathmore 500 series paper

The next painting was based on a photo that had been taken of me while I was laughing someones joke. I liked it, and thought it would lend itself to being done in oils, impasto style. I used more vibrant colours to give it more punch. I wanted it to be looser in style, and thought it might be good to keep my shirt on for at least one of the self portraits.

Untitled

16 x 20

Oil, Impasto on canvas

The third painting was inspired after the second, but I actually started work on it in between working on the other two. Again, playing with the idea of being both naked and hidden. This time, though the painting is not as revealing, you can see I am naked in the moonlight, and yet still hidden by the mask. I do wish that in the photo, I could capture the details of the glitter that I embedded in the gold and purple details of the mask. In person, these details really "pop" as a result of that glitter.

Moonlight Celebration

16 x 20

Oil on canvas

So, what inspired me to start with self portraits? I entered a contest called "The Power of Self" - an artists contest of self-portraiture. You can see my entries here.  Please, while you are there vote for me, by clicking on the stars at the top of the page. A click on the fifth star is the highest rating, on the fist star, it's the lowest rating.

I am looking forward to your votes - and to putting my shirt back on!

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Recently, I started taking night courses again. I wanted to get back to Life Drawing, since I hadn't done any for years, and then I decided I'd take a few courses on portraiture, since I had never done any of that. So, in September, I headed to school for 2 classes: one Portraiture in Oil, and the other Life Painting in Oil.

One of the things about portraiture classes that never ceases to amaze me, is the fact that we all put something of ourselves into the portrait. Literally. The very thin faced woman, who always makes her models look thin faced; the Asian girl who always makes her models appear to be Asian; the wider set man with bushy eyebrows, whos' models always have a likeness to him. It's absolutely fascinating to me. Psychologically, I know why. We all know our own faces the best, so unconsciously, we will paint what we know, rather than what we see, until we learn to paint what we see.

What fascinates me even more though, is that, for the life of me, I cannot see in my own paintings, where or how I put myself in there!

This semester, I thought I'd try the acrylics class, since I hadn't really ever worked with acrylics.

We started the acrylics class with a still life, to get the feel of the paints.

What I love about the acrylics, is the ease with which I can quickly overpaint and correct. What I find challenging, still, is the lack of time for blending. Having worked with oils since I was 9, I am used to long periods where I can play with colour blends. This has been especially challenging when we moved to portraiture.

That lack of time may not be a bad thing though. I am finding that sometimes, the speed with which I am forced to paint, makes me think less, and feel more, and I seem to be slowly allowing myself to loosen up a bit.

I still sometimes find my paintings too stiff. For now though, I want to concentrate on accuracy. From there I can branch out to more loose, and abstract. I just need a little patience to get there. (Yeah, right. I'm a Gemini, and speed is the name of the game!)

Here is another I finished last night.

I keep looking at this, and thinking I need to learn how to paint a 5 o'clock shadow.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ~ Mark Twain

I am not a fan of going to the dentist, and that, is putting it lightly! My first memories of going to the dentist as a child, involve numerous adults standing around the dentists chair, all holding down my arms and legs, so they could put a big, scary, black mask over my face. I remember the first few panicked breaths, convinced I would not be able to breathe, the smell of the gas, and finally a weird sort of oblivion. This oblivion consisted of black and white psychedelic dreams, and the "music" of buzzing in my ears.


Fast forward to recent years, and the problem has become worse. My experiences of the past few years have left me pretty much incapable of sitting in a dentists chair without the aid of some sort of relaxant, like nitrous oxide, or more.


I also have a sensitivity to epinephrine. It's used in the shots they give you to help make you freeze faster, and stay frozen for longer. I was once told I was allergic to it, though since then I have been told you can't be allergic to it, since your body makes it. However, during a hospital visit I was told a sensitivity to it, can be dangerous. I was told to wear a medic alert bracelet, just in case. 


So, when a dentist gives me a shot to freeze an area, without the epinephrine, the shot doesn't last as long. Consequently, I have a long history of telling dentists that I can feel what they're doing, and they either don't believe me, or they try to rush through to finish it up before I can feel more pain. While I would agree that the less time I spend in a dentists chair, the better, the rushing itself makes me even more nervous. 


In the past week, I have spent about 5 hours in the chair, getting some stuff fixed that really just couldn't wait any longer. My friends told me to be sure to ask for the "happy gas". During the first 2.5-3 hour session though, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they would call it happy gas. I was not happy to be there, and did not even feel all that relaxed. 


Today, that changed. I'm not sure if they used higher levels of gas, or if I was just a little more relaxed going in there, but today, the gas was working. At one point, I thought that something was going to be painful, but was so relaxed, I didn't think I wanted to even raise my hand to let them know. I suddenly could see why, in spite of being gassed as a child, there could potentially be some unconscious memories there that contributed to the fear. What if, as I lay there thoroughly gassed, the work being done was painful, but I was not able to let them know?


That brought to mind another thought. Just over a year ago, I had some work done. That dentist used what we jokingly called "blue juice". It made me conscious enough that she could tell me to open my mouth, but unconscious enough that I don't remember a thing from when she did her work. I only know that when she was done, I was bruised, swollen  and in pain from my neck to my cheekbone for a week. I looked like I had been in a fist fight, and whatever she did, since then, my terror of dentists has increased significantly.


So, what does all this have to do with art? Meh, not much. Except, that in my drug induced woozy brain today, with all my musings, I had the thought that my state of mind was much like a couple of paintings I had done. Those two paintings were so totally not inspired by drug induced states in a dentists chair, but I do think now, they represent that state quite nicely. As I just about merged with the seat, I happily thought, "I feel a blog post coming on." Then I had to try not to giggle, since he was playing with the drill at the time.


The first one was actually inspired by seeing some highlighted writing. Out of the corner of my eye, I "saw" the image as I was flipping pages of notes. The image so captivated me, that I had to paint it. Cheery Bouquet of Flowers

After I did that one, I thought it might be nice to do a series like that. All fuzzy, without defined edges, and I thought about this next one. So totally what I don't usually do. Since painting this next one, a number of friends have commented about how it makes them feel like the are seeing the auras of the birds, so I named it that. The Auras of Birds

I have not done anymore fuzzy edged paintings since then. But, if I have to go back to the dentist for more work, I may just take a few images with me and see what works best. You never know, there could be a great painting waiting for me in the fuzzy edges of my mind.