Despite the sequential narrative narcissism I’ve been engaging in for decades, I’ve never been one for self portraits – that is, visually accurate ones. Why, you ask? Oh, who am I kidding – you didn’t ask! No one dooooeeeessss
They’ve never really appealed to me. Artistically, it seems like one of the most boring subjects possible, just above still lifes and other constructive exercises. I see my own face so many times every day in the thousands of reflective surfaces in my home that it’s become an ordinary sight. But psychologically, I’m not really drawn (duhhh) to the act, either. Every artistic endeavor I do is a thinly-veiled desperate cry for attention already, so to literally make so blatantly a navel-gazing testament on top of a figurative one already seems like overkill, even for me.
This one I made specifically for the About page of my then-newly redesigned website, and goes along with my wackily strange (but totally true!) autobiography. It was sketched out by hand first, traced in Illustrator, and brought into Photoshop for some texturizing.
For some artists, a self likeness can be difficult to achieve, perhaps because of the above-stated ordinariness of the subject – ultimate familiarity can interfere with the analytical eye required to depict a subject accurately. It was something I was anticipating, but surprisingly, my face probably proved to be an easier likeness to achieve than others I’ve done before. Ultimately, it’s pretty accurate, and actually reminds me of my dad.
