A painted selfie

Acrylic on Canvas 50 x 75cm

Painting a selfie is not so easy because you think you know your own face so well, but perhaps you don't.

I had several tries for this one. I painted the first one in dim light using a tiny mirror. It was very gray and  I didn't like it much so I painted over it in green.

Six months later I found the canvas and started again, this time from a photo. It morphed, then morphed again.

Now it looks like me. Well I thought that before too, so maybe it will morph again. Or I could scrape it back to an earlier version. No, maybe not.

 Paintings from a mirror are what I see, which is the mirror image of what everyone else sees.

Self portrait in dim light

Acrylic, 51 x 72 cm

Nowadays, even when I don't have a painting project underway I keep an empty canvas on my easel because I have learned that if the materials are at hand the paintings often arrive by themselves. This is one such painting. It drew itself on Monday evening and I finished it off yesterday. I didn't have much light as you can tell.

When you paint self portraits from a mirror, which is what I did, you get a mirror image which is opposite of how you look to others. Sort of amusing and it just shows that you that you never see yourself as others see you. The mirror was perched precariously on top of the canvas and it fell off as I painted ... so I had to finish the painting using the mirror shards.

Mirror with paint daubs

Berlin: bricks and mortar

Berlin. Full of whopping great buildings. The Brandenburg Gate must be one of the most photographed buildings in the world. It is busy and noisy and it would be easy to walk past a small door built into the gate which leads to the Silent Room. The silence in the silent room is so profound that it almost hurts to sit there for the first few minutes. As time passes you notice a faint movement as a train passes below. As you sit a bit longer you feel the tension leave your body and the healing begin. Finally, you feel ready to emerge and see some more great whopping buildings ...
like those on the Gendarmenmarkt, a neoclassical square whose name dates back to the Napoleonic occupation of the city. On one side is the French Cathedral (in the photo) and on the other is the almost identical German Cathedral.
Between them is the Konzerthaus (Concert Hall), home of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra which had a red carpet running down the stairs (a permanent feature?).

In front of the Konzerthaus stands a statue of Schiller surrounded by seated damsels.

Self portrait as tourist in Berlin.

No all of Berlin is so monumental. One day I got lost in East Berlin and landed in an area that had been redeveloped. A passing Berliner said that the architects had been given the dimensions of the buildings but could then do as they pleased. This is the result, a place that woudl be nice to come home to.

What a pity the city planners and architects responsible for Sydney's Green Square didn't show such discernment.

Flash glasses

My project paintings are finally finished, or at least I think so. I have painted a series of self portraits. I put my specs on in this painting, bought in Sydney in June.

I am enjoying the freedom of acrylics ... so much easier than watercolour. But watercolour has its own charm.