Date of creation: 2018

Time it took to finish: 3 Months

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 90 x 120 cm

The Process: Challenges Seeing Myself.

My goal was to work exclusively from life to capture an academic likeness of the subject. I wanted to work on a large canvas, as close to life-size as possible. Large paintings tend to take a long time, and so I was faced with the challenge of finding a sitter who would be prepared for weeks or possibly months of commitment.

In the end, I found the perfect subject - someone who would always be available and in sync with my timetable: me.

The challenge of a self portrait is that we tend to have a version of ourselves committed to memory. I remember seeing myself in a "True Mirror" one day and realising how subtly, but importantly different my appearance was. In case you weren't aware, a mirror image of ourselves, is indeed that - mirrored. That means it is flipped so that our right hand appears to be the left hand of the reflection etc. The "True Mirror" I that mentioned is designed to give you the direct image of yourself, presented as though you are seeing yourself how others do. Your right hand reflects onto the right, and so it appears that this person in front of you may just be a stranger.

The Process: Being Humble as a Pathway Forward

So, without access to a "True Mirror" of my own, how was I going to overcome the challenges of painting a self portrait, from life, using a normal mirror to reflect myself in. I started with some drawings, trying to find the right look and composition, as well as a position that I would feel comfortable sitting or standing in for long stretches of time.

This experimentation yielded some interesting results. The main take away was that I settled on a standing pose, shirtless (not for vanity reasons, but purely as a way to avoid painting too many fabrics, as well as a way to work on my understanding and rendering of the male anatomy). I began with a more detailed drawing, but quickly found myself overwhelmed by the task. I found it hard to break away from that version of myself that I believed to be what I looked like.

It was at this point that I took a leap of faith. I humbly admitted that this task may be beyond the skills I currently had - a feat that any creative will tell you comes at great pains. We always wish to live up to our expectation and vision of an artwork. It seems more often than not, a self belief in our ability is not only helpful, but necessary to even begin to undertake such a lofty goal.

Considering this the perfect opportunity to swallow my pride, and as a silver lining, as a nice way to expand and grow as an artist, I enlisted the help of a mentor.

Scott Waddell is an American artist and instructor who taught for many years at the gold standard Grand Central Atelier in New York. I reached out to Scott, and to my surprise and somewhat relief, he agreed to help me with this artwork. I had my second pair of eyes, I had a vision and now it was time to get started.

The Process: Retaining Momentum.

Scott would correspond with me mainly via email, and as is his instructional style, would analyse and annotate images of the artwork throughout the process. He would give insights about technique, anatomy and how to visualise the form I was painting. All of his encouragement and direction amounted to a new level of finesse and dedication to the work, that was up until this point lacking in my practice.

Each night after I would get home from work, I would quickly make my way to my home studio, unpack my paints and brush, turn on some music and read through Scott's notes from the day before. Processing what he had written, I turned back to the canvas and began my work.

Some nights would see great leaps forward, others slower or sliding back the wrong way. The key to finishing it was merely sowing up, every night for 3 months and doing even as little as 15 minutes and as much as 6 hours.

The finished work.

As the portrait came to completion, I noticed that the figure in the painting was not an exact replica of the person who I thought I was, but instead, something more. I learned that capturing a likeness is more than mere reproduction, that it is in fact an understanding. Once you find this, and work with it, the work is alive with that spirit. That's how I feel looking at myself in this painting. This is a stranger to me, with something behind his eyes that I also know and share. We are strangers and yet the same.

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