This study I did after the head and shoulder of my model; as I needed to work around his schedule. I found this one particularly hard, perhaps because we all had the flu, and I couldn’t bear looking at myself. I felt a bit used and run around by my family as well. It was challenging adjusting mirrors and light. I used the reverse camera on my computer for the forward glance and a side mirror from the profile glance. Initially, I had natural light but later changed to one artificial light source.

I did the initial outline in pencil, then added in values with charcoal. I sprayed fixative on the canvas. Once dried, I washed the sketch with quinidine red, Acrylic Ink. This alone gave me some great darker values and mid tones. I used a palette of yellow ochre, raw umber, burnt umber, cerulean blue, Cadmium green, flake white and titanium white and cadmium red. I tried to paint as little as possible. I felt the nose, chin and ear hardest to tackle; probably my attempts to repaint them made them grow awkwardly large. Then I had to readjust the size of the eyes to match.

Does it have a likeness to me? More a likeness of how I was feeling. My husband says it has something, says she’s always watching him and he feels judged.