This Cloth Paper Scissors reader challenge was a journey of self-discovery for me. I tossed around a dozen different ideas before I realized that the portraits I truly love are those that reflect both the individual and their passions. Particularly, the artist at work in their medium. At that point, I knew that my self-portrait needed to include my passion for book arts and wee planet photography. And me too, of course…somehow. I chose to include several mini-me figures creating the artwork, because that is how I see myself: creating. From there, the project took on a life of it’s own!
What began as a tunnel book morphed into more of an open diorama for the feeling of space and light which always lifts my spirits. With one of my wee planet creations and a panoramic cloudy sky as a stage, I set to work. Torn paper clouds are layered across the bottom. One mini-me is painting the sky while another me is wielding scissors (with my eyes closed – well, why not?)
Every cloud has a silver lining – mine is strung with tissue paper birds! I loved the idea of a mini-me “auditioning” birds for the sky, so my basket is also full of birds and I’m holding one end of the silver thread.
The line of birds is continued on the back of the piece where another mini-me holds a business card with my contact info, and a second card with many of my roles in life: Artist, Entrepreneur, Business Owner, Mom, Optimist, Multi-Tasker, Avid Reader, Dreamer, Power-Tool Girl, I’ll Sleep Tomorrow…
I’m not sure what this piece says about me. Do I have my head in the clouds? Do I dream big? Perhaps that I know we each create our own worlds and, despite obstacles and obligations, mine will be filled with art, creativity and a love of life!
Thanks to Flickr users John Benson and Shutter41 for kindly sharing their bird photos copyright-free with a Creative Commons attribution license. All other photography and images are my own. Big thanks to my husband Joseph for the great idea of photographing my self-portrait against a backdrop of cotton “clouds.” The perfect finishing touch!
And for a little more eye candy, check out these fabulous portraits by other artists:
Nicole Caulfield, Self-Portrait with Still Life. (Colored pencils)
Self Portrait, Nicole Parrish (Above & Below)
Self Portrait, Marybeth Rothman (encaustic and mixed media painting)
Typography Portrait; Artist? Found on ImageSpark.com
Mixed-media Portrait; Artist? Found Here
Did you enjoy these? More amazing portraits can be seen at this link. Preview below:
At first, I envisioned collaging white musical notes on black for her hair, like so:
My next step was to clean-up the rough outline of the hair, smoothing curves and adding a few extra locks on her forehead. Then I erased her original bangs from the photo.
The final step was choosing a background for the collage. I made a small-scale copy of my collaged Beta’s to experiment with and swapped in dozens of potential backgrounds, from textured papers, fabrics and “found textures” to solid colors and nature scenes. My favorite was a simple image of clouds and blue sky. I then switched back to work at full-scale. I aligned the clouds with Beta’s eyes to draw the viewer’s eyes and as a final touch I added a few stars in the sky.
I have to say that my husband Joseph is one of the most talented and thoughtful people I know. This is the third portrait he has done of me, and the second of us as a couple.
