So my 2021 New Year’s resolution was to paint a present-day self portrait - to update ‘Vintage Dress’ and to counter-react the deliberately very dark ‘A Shadow of My Former Self’
The result is ‘A Little Self Reflection’
6 x 6 inches, oil on gessobord.

It’s always a strange experience painting yourself - aside from the immediate fact that it does force you to literally analyse yourself which brings lots of memories and emotions into the mix .... there’s the additional problem that you know your own reflected image better than you know your own face - which is why seeing yourself in photos is always such a strange affair! You end up with the skewed impression that it’s the photo image which is flipped rather than your bathroom mirror reflection.

I think whilst trying to capture a likeness than I felt looked most like me, I have inadvertently strayed towards avatar territory!

... So now I’m wondering, if this painting is part portrait, part avatar - does that make it an ‘avatrait’??