The World is My "Canvas"

The most interesting and difficult thing about painting a realistic self portrait is trying to capture the subject (yourself) in an unbiased and true way. You have to look at yourself from someone else's eyes and try to just look at what's on the surface. But at the same time, you have the ability to create the most realistic, detailed, and deep representation of yourself, more so than anyone else could because you know yourself so well. By incorporating that deeper understanding of why or how you look the way you do, and capturing some of the emotion and personality that lie below the physical surface, you can do something even greater than just painting a realistic-looking picture of yourself.

The green and red painting shown in the document above is a self portrait I did my senior year of high school. It is not digitally rendered, it is hand painted (acrylic) and it is about 3' by 2' on wood. And it took me 3 months. I learned a lot from painting this because I spent so long on it and because initially I was trying to look at myself from someone else's eyes. It wasn't until half way through that I ralized that to make it a true representation of me and to capture the depth and personality of me in it, I HAD to look at me through my own eyes. This is when I chose the color palattes (it was originally to be black and white): the green from my love of nature and peace and my soft personality, the red for my passion and emotion and depth.

Art is autobiographical, along with literature, music, and any other human creation. That is not bad, that is what makes it unique and beautiful. But along with that, we have to realize that our individual outlook on life or people is skewed. And if we judge others or can't appreciate or listen to their view, that is when it is crippling.