Nicole's Self-Portrait Challenge

 

When Nicole first challenged us to do a self-portrait for this week's Friday Face Off I thought "no way". I didn't feel confident in drawing or painting faces anyway, but a self-portrait? But you know how this works - even though you think there's no possible way you're going to do this, the idea sits in your mind and is doing its own thing, completely ignoring your negative attitude. Then Nicole said that it's totally fine to trace - and that felt to my doing-its-own-thing mind like getting permission to draw, actually the need to take out the watercolors and brushes.

First I was looking for a photo of myself that I like (there aren't too many) and I ended up with this one.

I traced the face and then I was wondering how to paint the skin. How the heck do you do skin tones? Thankfully I have this book and inside I found a skin tone color chart.

I mixed Raw Sienna and Cadmium Red Light and lightened it with white, using more water in the lighter areas and less in the shaded ones. I still feel I could have done more shading, but I was afraid to ruin the painting. It still feels rather unfinished. Yes, I took the liberty to give myself purple hair. I used Winsor and Newton for the face and Sennelier for the hair and shirt. The Sennelier watercolors are buttery and brilliant. However, I still have a LOT to learn when it comes to watercolor.

This was a true challenge for me, and without Nicole I would have never dared to paint a self-portrait. Thank you, Nicole, for making me leave my comfort zone.

I hope those of you living in the US had a good Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving week has been quite busy. We were tired of spending so much money for gas for our forced heating, so the Geek installed a minisplit in our living room. Our solar panels produce so much energy that the electricity for the heatpump will easily be covered by that. He did everything himself, from electric to the final touches. It took him four days. I think he did a fabulous job. 

We have set it to 70ºF (21ºC) to get it going, but this is too warm for us. Usually we heat our home to 65ºF (18ºC).

Yesterday the drain in our kitchen sink completely clogged up. The Geek is still repairing it - it's clogged somewhere in the pipes that cannot be easily reached. Thankfully he has so many appropriate tools that we're hopeful he will get it going again and I can use the kitchen tonight for making dinner (we're not having turkey, we're having chicken quarters and roasted vegetables, followed by my killer Tiramisu).

What a fun week we're having so far!

But - just like every year for Thanksgiving, the Strawberry Tree has fruit while flowering at the same time. This gives me so much joy.