Self-Portrait: An Homage to Sargent

Our final project for figure painting class was to do a self-portrait and choose a master artist as a basis for the painting (technique, color palette, style, etc.). I chose the ever popular and prolific John Singer Sargent. I chose to do a direct reference to one of his most famous portraits, "Vernon Lee" (featured below my portrait). This was my first self-portrait done with oil paints in 23 years. According to my friend Wik E. Pedia, Sargent averaged about 14 commissioned painted portraits a year. If you do the math, in that time Sargent would have 322 portraits to my one.


Sadly, my current set of painting skills could not capture the beauty that is my ugly face...


"Vernon Lee" by John Singer Sargent


I am way more handsome that this...or am i!?


This was the original lay-in for my self-portrait, nice and loose.