Self-Portrait Still In Progress

I finally got to put some solid time into my “self-portrait” this week.  If you’re new to my blog, I’ve been working on this since this September/October (see concept explanation half way down a previous post).  This week’s progress feels great and I’m learning a lot along the way.

The Female Figure (Amore, Tree Goddess, Me, etc.):

This was fun!  I finally got to empower my tree woman with 3 of the  sigils I’ve designed since October for this painting and my life.  I had originally thought of making them in colour, but instead, I did them in white and then glazed over them in Indian yellow, the same colour as the tree. Now, I feel they look like jewels emanating from within the tree.  I may still add a bit of colour in the branches, but I like the fact that from far, you can’t see them at all on the figure.  This was the first time I really got to use the chipmunk tail hair brush that I bought from Timea (originally from India – sorry, chipmunk 🙁 ).  It’s a little curved on the ends and so makes fine spiral work much easier.  The fact that the Plaka couldn’t stick to the previous coats of oil paint was a bit of a pain, but its beady effect is quite nice in places – happy accidents.

The Angel (Amore, Guardian Angel, etc):

I got another layer of whites on the angel – a

step towards making him more iridescent like

the bird I saw in the Natural History Museum. Because I didn’t feel like mixing a fresh batch of egg tempera to add another layer of whites, I decided to use Plaka, a commercial casein paint. Never again.  I had a lot of trouble with it as one layer would remove the one beneath, creating the impression of a hole in the angel’s thigh, so Lawrence had to come in and help out.  He had the same problem, baffling him.  This painting seem to be good at doing that 🙂 .  I hear a lot of artists don’t like the Plaka though.  I had much better luck with the tubed casein that we also had in class.

After adding the whites, I went in with various coloured oil paint and worked on my blending skills.  I still have a ways to go, but it’s coming along.  The whites I had put on are just the foundation – glazing didn’t provide enough impact, so I’m just painting over it. Today I worked a lot on the body – especially the highlights on the legs.  I can’t count, however, the number of times I reshaped his face and changed his hairdo. At one point, I just rubbed it off with a bit of turpentine-based medium and started over.  Here’s where working with oils has an advantage over acrylics.  I could go back and forth all day in between other projects and the paint was still wet and workable.

liked it, but the head was too far to the right

I look forward to working on this one some more, but I’d best wait until it dries to go in it again… that hair got pretty muddy because I wanted to add all the colours in there at once. Live and learn.  This painting, just like me and my life, is a work in progress and an unfinished space of exploration and expression.