The One and Only… Me by Ian States

Hello Ian, nice to meet you in this good self portrait

Self portraits can be precarious as one needs to keep still and I remember painting in oil years ago. Everytime I sat in front of a mirror the expression altered and needed to remain steady over a session of four weeks. You have achieved a good likeness and pigment for the facial features turned out well. Nice portraiture in oil Ian, you must be feeling accomplished in this first portrait!

Really good

Nice to meet you Ian, great portrait.

Great portrait Ian and lovely skin tones. You should be very proud of this.

A lovely portrait Ian. Always good to see what the artists look like!

Beautifully painted!

Good one Ian

Your first ever portrait - not just your first self-portrait. I'm impressed. I've painted several portraits over the years - I couldn't understand what was wrong with my earliest efforts, until I realized I was sitting down and thus getting too close to the board; consequently I was looking down at the image, and up at the subject - whereas what you need to do is get up, move about, gain perspective: or errors will creep in, which in my case was getting too much head above the eyeline. Well you haven't done that, in fact you've successfully indicated the curve at the top of the face and achieved the roundness of the head, avoiding that Mekon look. So full marks there. You have tonal variation too, the play of light and shadow. You haven't asked for a critique so I won't offer one - and anyway, I'm not primarily a portraitist. Obviously - first effort, bound to be areas you can improve. If I were going to criticize, I'd preface it by saying just keep on doing what you're doing, because this is an excellent start.

Heather, Angela, Julie et al…. I do appreciate your comments (two in some detail) and encouragement… Thank you