Face ....... the Final Frontier

Do you remember the start of Star Trek ...... ''space the final frontier, to boldly go where no man has gone before'' this week for me it is ''face the final frontier ...... a self portrait!'' Yes, I've drawn people before but never really myself, and I always like to push my boundaries so here is the result! 

Self Reflection 

Inspiration often comes from unusual situations and while I was hoovering in my daughter’s room I looked up and saw myself reflected in her mirror, then got my mobile and started to play with the image. It's not a typical portrait, but toys with three images of the same person, an idea that Manet used in his ''Bar at the Folies Bèrger''. Loving Celtic lore as I do, I was wondering whether this idea would work for a painting of ''The Three Goddesses'', reflecting the three ages of woman..... maiden, mother and crone ...... I'm definitely at the crone stage and feeling it. 

Funny, I love perusing portraits in museums, but I know my limits when it comes to drawing; my people never look like the people they are supposed to be, so it was surprising  to find my drawing did look like me. 

 If you could choose a painter to paint your portrait, who would it be? I'd love to be painted by John Singer Sargent or Whistler, although his mother’s portrait was meh! (Would love to know what her reaction was!) if it was a reclining nude, then I'd have to opt for Rubens, nobody does cellulite like Rubens and believe me he'd have a ball with mine. The Pre Raphaelites would be fun too, me as Ophelia as I always did have a hang to be overdramatic and I definitely don’t have the hair for a Proserpine, although you can work wonders with extensions these days. As a Tudor freak perhaps me by Holbein, in a Tudor hood .......... even more than Holbeins paintings, I love his portrait sketches, some even with touches of pastel, so that would be fun too. In my ballet clobber it would of course have to be Degas, perfect, because when he painted ballerinas they had a bit more in common with my body shape than the lithe and lissome dancers of today. 

Sketching a self portrait is one thing, but painting it in pastel, that really would be a challenge having never tried anything figurative before. Now that would be something to do on a dark winter's night. If it doesn’t work out I could always claim it was cubism and I was following in the footsteps of Picasso, come to think of it as a Celtic crone that maybe is the ideal solution, warts and all!