Self-Portrait for Self-Portrait (Reference Photo)

Self-Portrait for Self-Portrait (Reference Photo) Originally uploaded by randubnick

Over the past few months, I have been painting landscapes with oil bars. Now I want to try a portrait in oil bars. I haven't done a self-portrait in a few years, and it is about time. I don't really have a good mirror at the studio, so I decided to work from a photo. But I wanted to use a photo I had taken myself. Yesterday, I was considering all this over my morning coffee, and while I was sitting on the couch, decided to try photographing myself with my phonecam. (I have done this before, usually to take a picture of myself and a friend when no one else is around to be the photographer.) So my coffee got cold while I tried to get a usable picture. It isn't easy, starting with learning to aim the camera so to avoid cutting off part of your own head. (I do have a new digital camera but I am just learning to use it, and well, my phonecam was right there. Besides, the relatively low-res images of a phonecam can be kinder, like the Doris Day soft filter in the movies.) I kept making mistakes, cutting off part of my face, squinting at the camera, and laughing at myself. So I decided to smile for the camera, because a smile is a fastest and most inexpensive face lift, and I don't want to take this so seriously. This image turned out to be the best photo, but I didn't really intend to include the framed picture behind me on the wall. But I liked the frame as part of the composition. By the time I printed this photo out to take to the studio for a reference, I had decided to use the framed picture in the painted self-portrait. But inside the frame I would paint a second (smaller) version of the self-portrait. I liked that idea for the kind of double-knot it ties in time. To be continued. . . .