I think one of the most challenging subjects facing an artist is the self portrait. I know for many of us this has been a standard exercise in many drawing classes and its always hard to bring a fresh approach to a subject that most of us see everyday. But I think there is an opportunity here to explore not only what we show the outside world but what we keep hidden on the inside. A successful self portrait should be revealing, it should offer up something about the artist beyond what a camera can provide. It is an opportunity to be authentic, transparent and vulnerable.

I personally have always dreaded approaching drawing or painting myself, aside from the fact I apparently have no idea what I look lit since people tell me the end results never look like ME. Every time I do aproach using myself as the model, I always wind up discovering more about myself. I dont think as artists we can spend that much time on a subject and NOT learn something about the model, even if it is ourselves

The benefit to using ourself as a model of course is access. We dont have to pay ourselves to model, we can work whatever hours we wish and we dont have to carry on a conversation with ourselves, unless of coure you really want to . Many artists are known to us through history as a result of their self portraits... Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Gogh to name a few. Their paintings give us a glimpse to who they were not as an artist... but as a person. In the case of Rembrandt for example, we get to see him age through the years via a series of self portraits. The older version is much more humble then the arrogant young Rembrandt.

These self portraits I think are successful because they reveal something about the artist. See if you can learn something about these artists from a glimpse into their portraits!