For the past couple months I've been collecting self portraits with the intention of writing this feature. The genius of self portraits is that anyone can make one-- all you need is a mirror, something to draw with, and something to draw on. No special models or reference photographs are needed.

I know generally it's best to limit features to a small number of thumbnails, but I can't help it that there are so many amazing ones out there. I've loosely organized them by category in order to give your eyes a break. And don't think that I just searched the most popular self portraits to find these: all of these have below 100 favorites. So support your favorite ones with some !

brushstrokes


full body


head and torso


shadows and contrast


emotions and expressions


colors


chuck close


textures and repeated patterns


stylized


with camera


other pieces that don't fit into any of the above categories but were so amazing/creative/awesome I had to include them:


You might be wondering why there's only 102. (Actually, you probably weren't even counting.) Well, hopefully you got inspired from these and you can go make your own self portrait. The 103rd self portrait is waiting for you...