Self Portraits; Portraits of the Self

For this post, I want to write a bit about the self-portrait. Self-portraits can say anything from “this is my face” to “this is my soul.” Sometimes people think self-portraits are a bit vain. Only someone who was really narcissistic would paint his or her own face over and over, right? No way man!

You see, faces are both really interesting to draw and really hard to draw. Hands too, and feet, but we’re talking about faces! If you are painting a tree for example, and you screw it up, no one knows. But if you screw up a face? People can see it immediately. Our brains are designed to recognize faces, so if a face looks wrong somehow, everyone can tell. Of course, some artists, like Picasso play with that and make CRAZY faces on purpose, and that is awesome, but I would argue that you should probably understand how to draw faces at least sort of realistically if you want to create a successful distortion. Don’t believe me? That’s what Picasso did!

Here is Picasso's self portrait from 1896. He was 15 years old. Jealous of his mad skills? Me too.

Here is Picasso again in 1907-- He was 26 and already a cubist badass, getting inspired by African masks and whatnot.

And here is another self portrait from 1972, a year before his death. He was in his 90's. I hope I am still painting if/when I make it to my 90's.

So anyway when artists want to practice drawing or painting faces from life, we either need to pay a model to sit still for upwards of forty minutes, bribe friends to sit for us (to which the usual response, particularly from college students is: “Only if I can do homework while you draw me” and then you have a sketchbook full of pictures of people looking at books), or our third option is to grab a mirror and paint… that's right! A self-portrait! It is basically free, you get eye contact, and your model is willing to sit there as long as you’re willing to paint her. Artists are often willing to put themselves through things that we would not want to put other people through… Like sitting motionless with the same facial expression for three hours.

Aside from being a staple of every middle and high school art curriculum, I also think that self-portraits can really be benchmarks of where you are as an artist at any given point (see Picasso... again). I think they sometimes say more about you than you realize at the time you painted them. I hear that half the subject matter is how you paint it.

To illustrate this, I’m posting some self-portraits of mine through the ages. Enjoy!

This one came from the same box as the work featured in this post, If you hadn't already guessed. 

I think I was about five? 

Middle school art was pretty horrendous, so lets skip to high school...

 Yes, it was my anime phase. As you can see, I secretly wanted to be a magical anime girl. Specifically THIS anime girl: 

It's Skuld from Oh My Goddess! Also, I wouldn't have said no to dating any one of these guys. Look at how 80's they are!!

...But alas! I wasn't actually an anime super heroine. I was a boring old three dimensional high school student... But I COULD draw myself as a cartoon super heroine, and that's the next best thing, right? Right.

My alter ego is making a more super hero-y pose than my super hero self. Hmm...

So then in 12th grade, I took AP art at my high school and painted more realistic things... 

with real paint and everything.

This was my "dramatic angle" portrait.

Now, if I remember correctly, I did this sketch during my freshmen year at college.

And here is my first self portrait in oil ever! This is the face I make when I am painting. 

I collaged some bits into it too.

And this is me painting the previous painting. I like this one better.

Here is a sketch I did at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. It was during my semester in New York, which was miserable. I went to New York directly after spending an awesome and glorious semester in Mexico, where I learned about murals and socialists and graffiti! After that experience, the Met just seemed so elitist... Thus, free the art! 

And finally, you can't talk about Mexico and self portraits without referencing Frida Kahlo. WHAT. A. BAMF. Frida Kahlo was known for her surrealist self portraits (though I believe she never really thought of herself as a true surrealist. She was painting her own experience in the most raw and honest way she could, and I find her paintings stunning and provocative. Like this one, done in 1943:

In fact, after I saw the film about her life starring Salma Hayek (which I HIGHLY recommend watching if you haven't already) I was inspired to draw some semi-surreal self portraits of my own, not in the style of Frida Kahlo so much as in the same train of thought, that is trying to tap into something deeper than just my facial features. They are sort of a mix of my old cartoony style and my current art skills:

This was based on a dream I had where I literally binged on salad and then cut my leg open and bled salad greens instead of blood. Weird, right?

Childhood Masterpieces

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled blog to share some treasures I found in an old box. My mom has been saving great works of art from throughout my life and I have recently stumbled upon some of my early creations that I couldn't resist putting on the internet.

To help you understand the context of the following masterpieces, here is me, age 5, pictured with my kindergarten classroom's resident stuffed raccoons. As I recall, my teacher was all about the raccoons. 

...And here is an early self portrait. I am wearing my favorite dress with stripes and apples. I would bet that I was wearing that very dress when I drew this stunning portrait. To this day, all of my self portraits show me wearing whatever I was actually wearing the day I paint them. Apparently it has been a long-standing tradition in my work. As a side note, I don't really have blue eyes. I don't know why I drew myself with blue eyes.

This charming sketch is an insight into how I felt about art criticism as a child. The boy is saying, "Your picture is stupid" and I, wearing my extremely puffy-sleeved dress, respond, "Is not." 

Apparently, Rapunzel rode my bus in elementary school.

One recurring theme in my early work was mermaids. I drew many mermaids. Here are seven mermaids.

This appears to be a fairy or angel(?) seducing this dude with a flower.

Here she has help from her tiny friend. The guy now has a wing with heart on it! I think her seduction tactics are working!

Here, a woman with every natural hair color you can have presents a flower to this extremely pointy eared rabbit. More seduction and intrigue?

Various animals appeared frequently in my work, like rabbits...

...mice...

...poodles (playing kidpix on reeeeeaaaaallly old school computers)...

... pet hamsters (of which my sister and I had several, as illustrated in this multimedia collage piece)...

...dinosaurs...

...and dragons, but by far my favorite animal was the unicorn:

I found many unicorn pictures I drew as a child. I was all about the unicorns! In fact, this piece with the girl riding a unicorn was accompanied by a story, an early artist statement perhaps. I can only imagine it was part of an assignment to think about what we would become if we could build a cocoon and transform into something else, like a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. I wrote the following (edited for spelling and punctuation):

"If I could build a cocoon I would want to become a white unicorn with a pink tail and a pink mane. I would save a princess in distress. If someone was hurt, I would make them all better. I like being a unicorn."

I was not aware that I had such lofty ambitions as a child until I rediscovered this piece.

Finally, I would like to conclude this post with a story I wrote in first grade about Anne Frank. I am pretty sure I didn't actually know who Anne Frank was at the time. I included my text with these illustrations (again, edited for spelling and punctuation).

"Anne Frank" by Laura Meilman

"When Anne Frank was 13, one of her friends gave her a black book. She made it her diary and named it kitty."

"She wrote in it every day and she wrote something like this, "Dear Kitty, today my friend said, 'I'm buying ice cream.'" She had lots of friends and was very, very happy but..."

"She died in France."

The back cover is decorated with a continuing birthday present theme. I am pretty sure that I just thought it was cool that she had a diary named Kitty and I sort of ignored the rest of her life story. I would like to call your attention to the funeral illustration, which shows her grave with a big cross on it. Yup, I don't think I actually knew who she was when I wrote this circa age 6.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my early work. Perhaps it has given you some insight into my origins as an artist, both thematically and stylistically. I considered posting some of the anime I drew in high school, but I don't think I need to subject you all to that.