Triple Self Portrait at Eleven Years' Remove (Portrait of the Artist as a Younger Woman)

2002. 11 years ago.

A sketch; a curiosity.

I was working on a self portrait and I noticed that, with the curtains open after dark, I happened to have placed the mirror (hung on the easel) such that I could see my side profile refelected in the window and the mirror. The reflection was too delicate, too obscure, to capture with a camera, so I drew it.


The sketch stayed in my A3 pad until I used the same pad to make the recent self portrait in makeup.

I posted it on an online gallery as a curiosity, and was encouraged to work it up into a painting. I thought about it, and decided to make it a bit of an experiment; I stuck newspaper (culled from local publications) to an inexpensive canvas, and started off with Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine and Titanium White:

Then I expanded on the colours, using glaze medium in some places, and a knife elsewhere. I ended up covering pretty much all of the newsprint.

I added a bit more newspaper and finished the painting last night:

Triple Self Portrait at Eleven Years' Remove

Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20"

06 November 2013

> The next post has the (probable) picture from the easel in it.