Dear Jean,
You've been posting for months without a photo and so I must say how nice it is to "meet" you.
Self-portraits are tricky. It seems to me that their main value is that you have an always-present life model on which to practice all your life painting skills. Surely, a professional "glamour" photographer could get a more flattering photo of an artist for the artist to work from. You have to ask yourself whether your main artistic concern is brutal honesty or whether it is dashing, romantic, glorious splendor. (I'm thinking of a male artist's self-portrait as I write this, by the way.) What you chose will say as much about you as a person as it does about you as an artist. Maybe the best method is to paint one brutally honest one, and another one as the person you always WISHED you could have looked like.
Like you, I'm very frustrated with my eyesight (eye surgeries, etc.). I've worked hard to try to re-train my vision and for me this means working from life. I work very loose to start with, with my glasses dangling from an ear; then I put the glasses on to work the detail. It's a little like manually focusing your camera. It's a clumsy method and it sure looks stupid, but you can't let vanity get in the way of where you want to go.
Michele gives excellent painting advice as well as marketing advice. (Thanks, Michele, for reminding me to zoom in on features, since I sometimes forget to do that.) The 8" x 10" photo is a good idea - you shouldn't give the painting itself away unless you want to make a very special gift to an exceptional friend.
Best regards,
Linda
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Hybrid Mode
