Computer portraits

To do a computer portrait, sometimes I start with a computer image like the webcam photo of me above. I try to set a mood that I want to capture, snap it and then can use it either in looking at it or even start painting over the top of it to get the colors I want. Flesh tones are the hardest to get right from the Corel Palette and with a photo to start, I have them already. Sometimes I snap a photo like this one, cut out the colors I want, then paste them onto a new board where they are available to use.

The one immediately above these words is my first and I know that only because I wrote first on it. You can see the problem I had with getting color right. I wasn't attempting to find a mood this time. Just figure out how the brushes worked and with a mirror getting the idea of how shading and such would impact my result. This one was the last I did with a lot better sense of how to get flesh tones. It was a combination of a photograph, an image in my mind that I wanted, and trying to create a mood. There is no way to do something like this from a mirror as you'd be looking in it and losing the mood-- hence a photo had to set the mood.
The rest of these are not in any particular order. The one above was supposed to be a little more glamorous, minxish, a woman who was not of the land as I so often portray. This version of me is a side that wouldn't be seen often but it's there inside coming out only rarely.
Another of the less than good skin tones and set expression studying a mirror image. Mirrors have their advantages but they take more work to create a mood and experience helps that happen.
Mirror and darned determined to get it right. That is my cat behind me on the bed where she most often is and hence earned the title-- Me and My Shadow.

This is another mirror portrait but I had the idea of adding small images of things that are important in my life whether in spirit or reality.

I decided to do one as a drawing and again using mirror. This one suggests a woman not in control with other hands forcing her choices. It is how many of us often feel. What is the old song-- freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Of course, we have other hands impacting what we do and sometimes they seem more powerful than us.

Inside all women is that little girl they once were. Above is mine. I called it Moon Child and below is the woman today without the glasses and less of the moon. Is she more or less than she was? I am very lunar oriented, much feel the influence of full moons and frequently work them into paintings, photograph them often.

With the heavy lining on the eyes, the sad expression, this one earned the title Nostalgia. I still wasn't very good with the brushes when doing it and had a hard time getting shading right. it's from the earliest bunch of these portraits. Perhaps the eyes are so heavily lined to hide crying which women often do-- not saying I was when I painted this one from a mirror.

This one was meant to suggest the ocean and sky as storms tear at us and we have to stand firm against them. Again with the mirror and memory.

This one was the magic mirror as I painted what I saw as I looked into the mirror I routinely used in these self-portraits but put a background that was where I felt if the mirror was magic. The background is Big Hole Valley in Montana where the Nez Perce fought one of their battles trying to win their way to freedom.


This is one of my favorite sayings and my crystal ball. Not much more to say about it. I should try it again with my improved brush control.

I decided it would be fun to try painting more than the face for these self-portraits and these two are taking separate moods but using a photograph for the inspiration. I took the photos with self-timer..
These next two are back to the head but with a little more mood to them and experience has given me better control of brush and color.

Woman on Fire

More sadness in this one and not sure what it should be called. I was getting a bit better at looking at an image of me and creating a mood and not just a set, frozen expression.

The next two are more imaginary. The first one is how I see myself sometimes as the earth mother. The last one visualizing how I will be as I move farther into the aging process.

These were done over about a year and a half although I am uncertain when I first saw the idea on Blaugustine.