the self portrait

Throughout the ages artists creating in whatever medium they create in dabble in the self portrait.

As a way of telling the world who you are then who better placed than the artist themselves to create that illusion in the form of egotistical portraiture!

Now, if you're incredibly famous, like a Van Gogh or Picasso then you can (or could to be more precise) get away with just painting a picture of yourself and popping it into a gallery for everyone to see.  

If only it were that simple for the totally unknown though.  

I mean, how do you go about conveying your personality or feelings or what you love or love doing in a two-dimensional picture of yourself?  Do you look wistful; mysterious even?  How do you get the viewer to recognise what's behind the eyes or strained smile?  How do you give that flat image some depth; some life even?

And if you're a nobody then after asking yourself why exactly you feel the need to create a portrait of yourself, how do actually then go about all the above as well as telling people what it is you do?

Well, for this week's video I placed myself in that exact position and decided to make my own self portrait.  Mine is in photographic form of course as drawing or painting are just non-existent in my limited repertoire of skills.

Anyway, I shan't spoil the surprise by publishing my portrait here - you'll have to watch the video to find out.  And as usual you can do this just by clicking down there...