(Not a) selfie

 

The January challenge of 'Goed Gezien - Goed Bekeken' is "Selfie" inspired by the many self-portraits of the great painters and the many self-portraits made with the smartphones nowadays. We are challenged to make some kind of self-portrait this month.

As I am not a portrait painter, I do not even paint people if I can avoid it - most of the times I can avoid it - I had to come up with an idea. A few weeks ago we were at our North Sea coast and I made some reference pictures of the coastline with waves, wet sand and water. My husband made some pictures of me, while I was squatting for the best viewpoint. I have used one of these paintings for the challenge.

On my paper I did first draw the outline of myself before starting to paint. The water, the waves and the sand were painted and after that I mixed some shades of grey from Sepia and Indigo for my figure. I painted the coat, the phone, my glasses and my grey trousers. For my hands, face and hair I mixed a lighter grey with Cobalt Blue and Sepia. Shapes are only very slightly suggested, my first plan was to paint a monochromatic dark silhouette, but that would not have worked. So I changed my plan to create a better painting.

The information about the materials I have used, the size of this watercolour painting and its availability can all be found in my Tumblr blog.