Recently I wrote an article (actually written more than 4 years ago) published in International Artist Magazine discussing the advantages to utilizing photography in painting.  Although I put on a brave face, I must admit that there is some amount of guilt I feel about the use of photography.  Nothing feels so honest and pure as painting direct from nature.  So in this blog I wanted to show a recent step by step self portrait I completed from "life" using a mirror. 
In a way, this is revisiting a self portrait I completed (pictured left) from a mirror back in 2000, when I was 42 and living in Brooklyn, New York.  In this new self portrait as in the old, I set up one source of strong light sitting over my left shoulder and eliminating all other light sources.  I worked primarily at night to achieve this.  The 2000 version was completed in two 3 hour sittings while this newer 2008 version was completed over the course of a week.  Each stage below represents what was accomplished each evening.  I would photograph the results the following morning outside.  Its interesting for me to see the changes after almost nine years in myself.  Aside from my now grey hair, glasses and 10 plus pounds I'm pretty much the same.

Day 1: I started with vine charcoal to block in the basic placement of the figure and composition. Size of head, placement of hands were determined at this stage.  I spent around 5-10 minutes on this rough gestural stage.		Day 2: I then used a thin wash of flesh tone to establish a mid-tone for the face and arm before starting to draw with the paint using mostly raw umber.  At this stage I also added the artist's smock.  I felt the t-shirt alone was too bland and the smock added a bit of costume interest.
Day 3: I spent another couple of hours working out the drawing continuing to use raw umber.  The face in particular was reworked.  The maul stick was added at this stage.  I discovered myself holding it and decided it was an effective element.		Day 4: I started in earnest with the face and head as well as part of the background to relate to the head in terms of color, value and edge relationship.
Day 5: Completion of the upper background and t-shirt.		Step 6: Completion of book shelf, suggestion of books and artist's smock.
Day 7: This is the finished painting. It measures 29" x 19" and is on oil primed linen canvas.  Although in reality I am a rather neat painter, I decided to add the paint stains on the smock for effect.		"Self Portrait at 51 (2008)" Detail