Self Portrait at 63

Staring at Mirrors

I finished another self portrait today.

Self portrait senior citizen pencil

Self portrait senior citizen pencil

I will post in order, first to last, along with a few notes about my thinking.

I started in pencil, made sure it was accurate, then sprayed it with fix. This pencil drawing was about 4 hours of work.  I intentionally made the eyes oversized. Several months ago I watched a movie called “Big Eyes”. Read More

Self Portrait March 2017

Another Self Portrait

I started another self portrait a few days ago. Pencil seemed like a good starting medium, but I got lost in the details and forgot it was going to all be covered up with oil paint. In hindsight I should have just done a nice pencil drawing and called it good. I’ve got some lovely Rives cold press 80# Illustration board that makes awesome pencil drawings. But I started this on gesso covered board, so an oil painting it will be.

Self Portrait from mirror, pencil

Self Portrait from mirror, pencil

I posted the pencil version on instagram  and my friend Kristi said I should leave some of the pencil showing, for an unfinished look. I’m not sure if that will happen, but I do like the look of the hair in pencil contrasted with the skin tones. I mean, if I wanted it photographic, I’ve got cameras for that. I’m trying to create art, but art is so hard to define.  It means different things to everyone.

Anyway, I’m happy with the progress, and look forward to spending more time on it. I’m still hammering out the color scheme. For example, what color is reflected light on skin? I’m using two lights: a shop trouble light (incandescent) for the main, and a much smaller fluorescent trouble light for the fill light.

I honestly can not see the hue. I keep guessing at violets and greens, but nothing rings true. They say any hue will work if the value is correct. And it’s true that if I flatten it to black and white the values look accurate…but that doesn’t help as I agonize over paint colors at my palette.

Self Portrait, 7 hours in

Self Portrait, 7 hours in

It’s lovely to have the spare time to paint. This quarter has been too much work and not enough play, up until this week.

Lisa and I did our usual birthday ski Tuesday. We went to Crystal this year where I tried out some borrowed downhill skis. My normal tele boots didn’t fit them so I tried out some boots from the early eighties and they were horrible. Now I realize I need to invest in new boots that will work for modern downhill skis. But I can’t afford both downhill boots and backcountry boots…assuming I want to ski randonee style (AT) in the backcountry.

At Crystal I quickly shed the downhill gear and went back to my telemark set up. That was awesome in the deep powder and I made it all day in those. But it’s all about the boots. My tele boots are only a few years old and they work great, very supportive in deep snow. My son said he would help me look for modern downhill boots when they go on sale this spring.