Narcissism At It's Finest

'Self Portrait' Acrylic, Gouache, Watercolour, PVA Glue on A1 brown kraft paper.

What better way to get back into painting then to start with a self portrait? I was at a bit of a loss as to what to paint, but I knew I wanted to paint something so I painted myself. Or at least I tried to. I really struggled with the process of this first painting; I can only liken it to the feeling you get when you have so much you want to say you just don't know how to get it out. I wanted to explode with creativity. 

The process of this was really frustrating as I constantly battled with making the painting look like me and trying to achieve some sense of ambiguity with the piece. All while trying to incorporate colour and texture. 

I'm really happy with the end result. I feel that there is just the right balance of tone, highlight/shadow, colour and realism, to create a painting that suggests a figure but that the idea of that person doesn't take away from the key notion of paint. I want it to be a key notion within my work that what the viewer is looking at is a painting. It is made with paint and the physical process of painting is apparent; hence the obvious brush-strokes, evidence of mapping out proportions, texture from where paint hasn't been applied smoothly.

The way I work with paint is quite interesting in that I build everything up in layers and I take my time to build those layers. I like for their to be a sufficient surface to work upon so that I have something to work with rather than working on a blank piece of paper. I'm very sculptural in that I like to manipulate the material of paint rather than apply it which is interesting as a I detest sculpture. But with the increasing notions of sculpture constantly becoming apparent within my work I cannot bare to ignore it any more. 

Process within painting really interests me and is slowly becoming a theme for my dissertation with particular reference to Willem de Kooning.  

Although this painting is still in process as I have yet to decide how to/if I am going to frame it etc. But I "finished it off" by applying a thick layer of PVA glue. As mentioned above I like to work in layers and I have found that applying a finishing varnish/sealant to the piece helps to merge all of these layers together to create a uniform image. By merging together the different layers it allows for different colours from previous layers to show through. For example in this piece, a blue that I had applied to the work quite a few layers beneath the top layer of paint showed through as the glue was applied and it dried. I also like the look of the PVA glue on top of the piece as it solidifies the image not only physically but as an idea.