It's interesting to see these three self portraits all together. The self portrait on the far left is from 2009. The story is here about how it happened on the day it was painted. The self portrait in the middle is from 2010, and when it was painted, I wrote about it here. And, of course, the portrait on the far right is from a couple of weeks ago.
I suppose it looks a little conceited to have these three self portraits all in a row. To be sure, I've painted myself time and time again -- not just these three. Why, you ask? Because it doesn't matter to anyone but me what it looks like in the end. I can experiment with color and technique, painting to my heart's content and no one complains. At the very least, with self portraits, it's not a "commission", which is, within reason, generally catered to the patron and is (or has been for me) more restrictive creatively to paint. Not that I'm complaining -- I love painting portraits. If I could paint only portraits from this day forward I'd be a happy woman.
