Project 15: self portrait

One of our assignments is to do an expressive self-portrait so after I completed my portrait of my goddaughter I decided to do one of myself. I started by taking a selfie but I didn't like my hair in the picture...

so I used the hair from another picture that I had of myslef.

I then free-handed the picture and layered my colors and ended up with this:

(this is a strangle angle to take the picture at, I swear the head isn't this misshapen in the real one)

(why can't I turn this, I don't know..why can't I, Blogger????)
Another reason I really wanted to do a self portrait is that I'm constantly reminded on how well (or not-so-well) I did in Art one. I'm reminded because one of my teachers put my old self portrait on the art room wall...

Wow I was really bad. But art is a skill that you can develop over time and you can't let your current art skill deter you from getting better. I'm often inspired by other peoples art, but not necessarily in the way where I try to do the same style of the artist, but rather aim to improve my own art skill so I can be at their level. Anyone can be a artist if they want it bad enough and stick with it. Want proof? Here's a 3 1/2 year difference in my art skill:

And I'm still getting better. I'm really pleased with the end result of this project, my art is still not quite where I would like it to be, but i look forward to doing a self portrait in another 3 years and seeing how much better I am.