Exercise 8 Figure in an interior

I toyed around with various ideas on how to approach this exercise.
The composition I thought about using was the background used in a famous painting, in combination with  my own sitter. Looking at some of Richard Diebenkorn's figure painting influenced my decision about poses. The Woman in the chair  in particular. Again I like the fact that it was side on and she is looking away. This or a similar pose would fit in with an interior I found of Edward Hopper's - Rooms by the Sea as I thought I could place the sitter against this to appear as if relaxing while looking out to sea.
After trying out a few sketches I decided that the background in my lounge would probably tie better with the reclining pose I had chosen. The shapes and angles present seemed to have more potential interest and could be made to look ambiguous even, together with the sitter, in relation to the direction of light, which I changed from the left side to the right as though shining on the sitter's face. I had to manage this carefully to minimise dazzle. I included a suggestion of a television screen also on the same side - facing the sitter, so leaving me wondering about the contradicting set up of the two, an element I like.

Research Point 3 - Figures in interiors

19th Century

Berthe Morisot - In the Dining Room
Cultural restrictions of her gender at the time limited what subjects Morisot could paint, in the sense that it was regarded as taboo for a woman of her class to be seen alone in many public places.  So, the subjects she painted were mostly of domestic life, family and friends. This particular one is of her maid servant, neatly dressed, looking alert and ready to serve. However I think the artist had a way of bringing sparkle to an otherwise  mundane subject matter. And despite 'respectable' female artist's limitations, Morisot broke away from conventional realism with her lively painting style. As a member of the Impressionist movement she had her own distinctive style characterised by very loose brushwork
The shape of the picture frame echoes the vertical rectangles, which are the dominant shapes. The largest areas of darkest values are balanced between the upper and lower centre of the fugure's clothes. Dark horizontal lines on the window frames and the wall clock direct the viewer's attention to the central figure. Although there is a lot going on in the background, it looks well balanced. This busy scene has been successfully simplified, I think, because of using the same colours and sketchy brushwork as in the figure, so that it doesn't take over the figure as the focus of attention.. Only the areas of orange and flesh tones are picked out in the fruit and other isolated areas, dotted around randomly. In this way attention is drawn to the little dog at the heels of the figure (maid) by the flesh colour of its only visible ear.

The Dining Room, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1875
No description available

"Berthe Morisot 003" by Berthe Morisot - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berthe_Morisot_003.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Berthe_Morisot_003.jpg

19th/20th Century

Walter Sickert

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/edward-hopper/sunlights-in-cafeteria

20th Century

Richard Diebenkorn 
Diebenkorn alternated between figure and abstract painting. He didn't want to be associated with any particular art movement, though at different times was associated with Abstract expressionism (earlier work) and the Bay area figurative movement of 1950s and 60s. Heavily influenced by Matisse his depiction of figures in interiors contained plain areas of colour in geometric shapes,  roughly rectangular, quite vivid, one colour often painted over an underlayer of its complementary, parts of which are very often left visible.
 Woman in Mirror - the main spatial relationships in background are formed by rectangular shapes. The triangle occurs at least twice as a secondary shape, of which orange ones lead the eye to the sitter's head and its reflection in the mirror. No two shapes are exactly alike. Horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines combine to lead the eye to the focal point - the woman's reflection. Coffee is constructed in a similar way:
http://www.wikiart.org/en/richard-diebenkorn/coffee
On studying a number of Diebenkorn's figure paintings I was trying to work out how he applied the paint - they are all done in a similar fashion. I tried to emulate it myself in my own painting of a figure in an interior (practicing on some pieces of gessoed scrap paper) but without much success. Some of the surfaces in these paintings, while looking very textured, they don't look raised. I think the texture is created by the way the paint has been applied rather than the thickness of it. I think now, on looking again later on after a couple of weeks have gone by, that he quite possible used a scrubbing motion, scumbling the paint thinly to achieve the parts of the underlayers still visible. For instance the blue over the orange on the dress is greyed down a little as a result. The muted greys and browns at the top and bottom of the frame intensify the more saturated tones next to them. The intense violets, reds and oranges only fill small parts of the whole but have a big impact, especially the reds and oranges juxtaposed against their complementaries.  This also applies to the reds in the painting on the left. In total their is a good balance of shapes, intense and muted tones.
Link to Woman in Mirror - http://paperimages.tumblr.com/post/7810167224/fineartstef-richard-diebenkorn
This blogsite also contains a large selection of other, mostly large, images of the artist's work, showing the brushwork in great detail. Hopefully this will prove useful to me on future attempts.

21st   Century 

Bradley Wood uses thickly textured oil paint in painterly way. Looking closely at the buttery texture of his painted surfaces I get a sense of how much he must revel in the paint’s thick consistency and the process of  moving it around. His enjoyment of the process is almost tangible in the end result.

He paints scenes (either imagined or real?) inside the large houses situated in a neighbourhood of the ‘well to do’ on the  outskirts of New York city.

It is difficult to pick out any one scene which I like the most but these two are intriguing:
I can't find a title for this one or a link that works - frustrating not being able to locate it. I think it must have been removed from the site. That's a pity as I find this one particularly intriguing. Not to worry though, as there are plenty of other paintings equally deserving of close inspection. In this scene however, all I can offer is a description of my own impression of it:
I get an impression of large space from the sharply receding perspective of the borders between ceiling, wall and floor. It is a decadent looking room, in which a sparsely dressed man is standing at a window holding a pet dog or cat under one arm. The other arm is holding up a viewing instrument of some kind - I would guess he possibly spying on his neighbours. Though I can't see it in this painting, in others the artist occasionally uses distorted perspective and the paint is allowed to drip in places.
This more evident in Reclined 2007 -
http://bradleywoodnyc.com/75812/667080/gallery/unavailable-and-some-older-work
 in a darkened room a woman stands near the edge of the picture frame, with a cigarette in hand, looking out of what is suggested as a window, judging by the lace curtain next to her, flapping about in the breeze and the sunlight from the window illuminating her face. Her whole stance suggests someone deep in thought. behind her the room recedes to a wall with two more brightly lit windows. There are some flowers in a vase on the table in the middle of the room at the left of the painting, helping to break up the space and balance the figure on the other side. But I also see a large dark silhouetted shape on the left edge, quite sinister looking - a real air of mystery and suspense.  Throughout this collection of paintings, contours are wobbly giving them a look of fragility.To me, it all adds up to an impression of a surreal and unearthly world, about to melt like warm ice cream.
Detailed views of his many paintings are available on this link:
http://www.bradleywoodnyc.com/
More information also on these:
http://partsgallery.blogspot.ie/2011/10/bradley-wood-oct-12-nov-6.html
http://www.bradleywoodnyc.com/75812/667080/gallery/unavailable-and-some-older-work

Exercise 7 Conveying character

Patti Smith - American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist. Medium - acrylic.
A black and white photo - the front page of a magazine, was my only reference for this portrait, albeit a good quality one. After a tonal sketch, did a few colour studies with colour test pieces, to try out various combinations. The reference photo contained a lot of dramatic light and shadow, so I decided to try and convey this atmosphere with unrealistic, perhaps moody colours. A portrait by Oskar Kokoschka - of Adolf Loos was also instrumental in influencing my decisions, both colourwise and the nature of the paint application. http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/images/oskar-kokoschka/adolf-loos-1909.jpg!Large.jpg
The hair was put in as a loose drippy wash in cyan and black on a cyan background - I wanted to capture the effect of wild unruly hair. It was later strengthened and deepened with darker thicker paint in various colours.

1

2

3 finished

Three stages of the painting.










Throughout the whole painting I used a combination of thick and thin paint, opaque and transparent. For instance I added glazes to soften some areas and opaque paint on mostly the light toned areas, particularly the nose tip, the cheeks, centre of lower lip and chin. Also to intensify the dark areas.
Technical problems: because of the hot dry weather at the time the paint was drying too fast, despite using a staywet palette. Adding  retarder was a huge help to both the paint on the palette  and on the canvas. Bristle brushes seemed to be relatively unresponsive on this occasion, in comparison to when I tried synthetic ones. Again it took ages, repeatedly adjusting and re-adjusting the tones before I was reasonable happy it was finished. Being able  to tell when it was finished was easy, unlike certain others.

The finished painting portrays an element of firm determination in the subject's character, reflected in the expression - the upturned mouth, the gaze and the dark piercing eyes  . I think it also conveys presence as the head is fairly close-up to the frame, maybe a rather ghostly presence. I think the colours and tones I used still retain much of the drama of the photograph. The above elements combine to make it the most successful portrait of the exercises so far - in my opinion. The previous portrait is a close second (see Mood and Atmosphere).

Exercise 6 Creating mood and atmosphere

Initially I thought about trying to use non realistic colours and painting style similar to German Expressionists such as Paula Modersohn-Becker's 'Lee Hoetger and her sister', but somehow I couldn't settle on this. My subconscious wanted a little more realism.  I tried a couple of colour studies of my model thinking that the mood I would like to create was one of calm relaxation. I began with various mixes of blues, greens and purples on a white ground. Somehow my study came out rather more realistic than I first intended and seemed to be constantly fighting against too much simplification.  The method of using blocky paint application didn't seem to tie in with an air of calmness. Should I change the intended outcome to a different or the brushwork or the colours? Should I go more in the direction of Picasso's blue paintings or even Rembrandt? By this stage the sitter had only a certain amount of time so I decided to stick to blues and purples while trying to create an air of quiet introspection. I tried another colour study on a dark ground first. Both versions had their advantages; the white ground it would be easier to retain the lightest lights where the ground is left unpainted creating a vibrant glow. The dark ground it would be easier to retain the darks  ie. the nostril and pupils of the eyes, although I had to re-assert these when they became partly obliterated by lighter paint, due to the awkwardness of the small scale. I think the dark ground would fit the relaxed mood better if I blend the brushmarks more in my next attempt.
At one point during the process of the final painting I became conscoious that I might be finally discovering how to better control the brush. I was now using a wider flat (size 6) in quite small areas, like the eye sockets, with confidence. Also holding it further away from the tip - similar to a knife when spreading butter both hard and soft, I seemed to have improved flexibility in my wrist. It didn't solve the need to use a tiny brush for the finer details of the eyes - but you can't have everything. I scraped back some areas with a plastic card to obtain variation in surface texture and scratched out certain other areas, but these aren't so visible, except to expose some of the raw canvas..
The highlights gradually became so light that I was eventually using the odd touch of pure white in the end.

colour study 1

Finally, the face looks a bit overworked in relation to the top, which I think looks more painterly. On seeing John Minton's  self portrait (Research Point 1) it makes me feel a little better in this regard.

colour study 2

The eyelids appear to be covered in a veil of mist, due to my laboured attempts to add convincing highlights, but they repeatedly slipped into undesired areas, so I reinstated the eyelid creases. This was a very delicate operation which I struggled with repeatedly. I wanted to try a variety of techniques in one painting: 1. all prima - didn't really work as I had to leave the part completed painting and return three or four times over the course of a few days, because my energy levels were very low, due to a heavy cold. As a consequence some paint was  tacky when I painted over it - not ideal. 2. scraping back some still wet areas with a knife or plastic card. I was fairly pleased with the effect as it revealed parts of the mid tone ground  - a thick and thin effect, although the result is only subtle. All the while I subconsciously wanted to achieve a likeness of the sitter, so I found it necessary to fiddle around with the shadow and tonal variations, to try and balance them. It seemed to take forever...

early stages of painting -
the basic tones mapped in

completed painting - this is not a good re-production

Thoughts on the completed painting: The paint in parts does appear to have some expressiveness. It is definitely evocative of a particular mood. Some of the brushmarks on the shirt,  a certain liveliness. On the forehead the wrinkles, along with the faraway look in the eyes, contribute to a tinge of  anxiety   in the sitter's expression, adding a certain edginess to the otherwise calm atmosphere. Aswell as this, the eyes looking away gives the sitter a look of moody  introspection and and mysterious air to the whole. The glow emitted from the light source, onto the face tends to give him an angelic look in a strange way.  The mood is also one of calmness, created mostly I think, by the blues and mauves and the blended brushwork. Both the sitter and  I think it is a good  likeness, fairly realistic, yet a little unusual because of the unrealistic flesh tones. 

Completed painting after alterations

On the initial version there are small rivers of canvas showing through in places. This is because I  had scraped back some of the paint to give a look of unevenness. I don't think, looking at it again, that this effect does anything positive for the painting; the paint looks too sparse and I'm not keen on the appearance of canvas showing through so much now; my tutor didn't criticize this apart from the lower right of the face. Upon revisiting, following certain suggestions she made I worked over this area gently but found it looked thicker and more intense alongside the other areas; they looked faded and hazy in comparison. Despite my attempts to blend and soften it, the lower right side of the face still has a rivulet like appearance,  but this was what I saw.  I started to find fault with many other areas of the face and hair which led me on to continue adding alterations. I also tried to quieten down the background by blending the paint more. Doing this and adding another layer using slightly darker tones than the previous layer, I think it has also had the effect of bringing the face into dramatic focus, reminiscent of chiaroscuro.

this study was considered as possible
 alternative option.

I didn't try to disguise the beard and facial hair, but rather tried to soften its appearance. I think it does mostly softer in spite of a dark shadow  on the right, contrasting quite strongly with the light grey beard. This shadow is what I could see so I didn't try to tone it down. In the end it is pretty evident that virtually the whole painting has undergone an alteration/addition of some sort, even so I am quite confident that this has been to its advantage.

Research point 2 Looking at faces 2 Paintings conveying a distinctive mood or atmosphere

Picasso's blue paintings: Pablo Picasso's blue period lasted about four years - from 1901- 04. But what triggered it? Partly, it is believed, that the suicide of his closest friend Carles Casagemas was a major factor.

Jaime Sabartes, a close friend at the time, wrote:“Picasso believed Art to the son of Sadness and Suffering… that sadness lent itself to meditation and that suffering was fundamental to life… If we demand sincerity of an artist, we must remember that sincerity is not to be found outside the realm of grief.”

In these moving paintings, he portrayed sad, destitute people. The colour blue is all pervading. It is a very subdued and cold blue. He used it very effectively to exude a mood of despair and hopelessness. These people were regarded as outcasts of society - beggars, itinerants, prostitutes, circus people, disabled people and out of work actors. The figures wear dark sombre clothing contrasting with the icy paleness of their skin tones. Their mood reflects Picasso's own poor and lonely circumstances at the time - it is ironic that these are some of his most popular works now.
Drunk Woman is Tired:
http://uploads1.wikiart.org/images/pablo-picasso/drunk-woman-is-tired-1902.jpg!Large.jpg
Seller of Gulls:
http://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/pablo-picasso/seller-of-gul.jpg!HD.jpg

The potato eaters 1885
oil on canvas,
82cm x 114 cm,
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh - The Potato Eaters 1885 and  Peasant woman cooking by a fire 1885:
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436531
. He has depicted these people as simple and unpretentious. Heavy contours emphasize the boney hands and faces to show they work on the land and indicate that they are the very hand that helped to put the food on their plates. It is almost as though he could feel the contours as he was painting them or was carving them out from wood. This reinforces the weariness of each person. The steam rising from the platter and the lamplight help to soften the rough hewn features of the painting.

It really encapsulates the hard labour involved to earn their food.
The rather sombre feeling is captured wonderfully also by the contrasting light
and deep shadows in earth tones.


Rembrandt - Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer c1653
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_013.jpg
This contains much more background detail than many of his usual head and shoulder portraits. It is said to shows the philosopher looking weary and deferring to the bust of the humble Homer.
It is possible to zoom in very closely and check the fine detail, the quality of this image on wikipedia is so good. The layers of glazing are quite visible - I can see the undulating depths of the dark blues and umbers in the background and there is a beautiful misty quality about the whole image, characteristic of Rembrandt's paintings. The two faces are the main focal points as they are the most brightly illuminated. The illusion is one of a spotlight on the faces. This is chiaroscuro, an effect typically characteristic of Rembrandt's work.The surrounding background areas particularly, are very dark.  as the overall light effect is quite soft when compared to, for example the dramatic contrasts of Carravaggio. Rembrandt's painting here, to me exudes an air of understanding, gentleness and quiet contemplation.

Van Gogh, the Fauvists and Expressionists: 

Both the Fauvist and German Expressionist painters were heavily influenced by Van Gogh in the use of bright contrasting colours and thick impasto brushwork and he is noted for introducing this method.
He tried to explain to his brother, Theo: "Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily, in order to express myself forcibly. ...
Many in the art world of the time were very critical of  the work of Van Gogh, the Fauvists and Expressionists and even regarded some of it as grotesque. How times have changed....
Amongst members of the Fauvist movement were of course Matisse and Derain, also Charles Chamoin, Louis de Vlaminck, Georges Roualt and Raoul Dufy.
The work of Georges Roualt, who was also an Expressionist,  usually consisted of glowing colour and heavy black contours, probably influenced by his earlier apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer. Most of his subjects have a haunted look.
The work of both Fauvists and German Expressionists were influenced by primitive art and would typically be dominated by flat unbroken areas of saturated colour and simplified forms. They used colour in portraits in an experimental way, creating their own equivalent of traditional skin tones in bright saturated mostly complementary colours. The German Expresssionists also used colour to evoke emotions with their dramatic, powerful colours, dynamic compositions. They were divided into two groups: Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) in Munich. Wassily Kandinsky was a member. and De Brucke (The Bridge) based in Dresden and Berlin.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner often depicted uncomfortable looking figures in movement. His outlook that powerful destructive forces were behind western civilisation affected his techniques.
http://www.wikiart.org/en/ernst-ludwig-kirchner/street

In this landscape it is possible to get a real close up view of the brushwork, while not impasto, it has been applied very freely.
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/impressionist-modernt-art-evening-sale-l12002/lot.37.html
In another one he appears to have used sgraffito, impasto and scraped back some of the paint to expose the texture of the canvas here and there.
http://lifeodyssey.net/art-kirchner-expressionism/

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff  used intense thick  impasto brushwork and strong colour in his early paintings. In this self portrait, the colours are unmixed, yet work effectively as skin tones. Although the colours used here are muted, in spite of that they are strong and mostly unrealistic. The detail shows just how thickly he applied the paint:

Detail of brushwork

http://www.germanculture.com.ua/december/dec1.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schmidt-rottluff-woman-with-a-bag-n05953

Exercise 5 Head and shoulder portrait

exploring the head &
face

For this portrait I decided from the start to try a profile.My sitter was wearing a teal blue shirt and there was a light neutral coloured background, containing a picture and a mirror on the wall, a lamp and a dado rail running from one side to the other. I began with a few sketches in line and tonal sketches.
The first part of the painting was monochromatic black, greys and white - a grisaille underpainting in acrylic to work out the tonal variations. Oils were used for the remainder of the painting.
I used round brushes more than I usually do and found them flexible, the small ones useful for detail. Also a long flat size 8 in the shirt area, but later reverted back to the usual flats, as I just feel more comfortable with them. I put the background elements in to give just a vague suggestion of what's there as I wanted the figure to be more prominent.

1 underpainting

2 

I used a complementary scheme of prussian blue and cadmium red and yellow. The blue colour of the sitter's shirt was roughed in first and was quite quick to do. The colours I used in the first mix for the face and neck  were very yellow. Initially I intended to use an unrealistic skin colour for the skin thinking it would add interest, but changed my opinion when I saw it after application. The fact that it made the model look jaundiced didn't help. I rubbed most of it off with a turpsy rag and instead mixed in more cadmium red approximating something nearer to the model's own colouring, although it was still going to be quite orange. I didn't mind this. Some quite dry brushwork was used around the beard area and it mixed with the still wet colours beneath. I applied the darker medium tones to early  so it wasn't until well advanced with also the light a dark tones on the face that I could reallysee whether the medium tone looked convincing.

3 Initial finished painting

After completing the background in blue/green tones the blue tone of the shirt appeared to isolated so I added some of the background colours with more prussian blue added to help pick up the green tones of the background. I seemed a lot of mixing in this painting. Midtones of the blue/greens from the background and shirt were added to the hair to highlight the light from the window behind me and at the same time show reflected colours - I quite like the way they do this. When I thought I was finished I suddenly noticed dark tones of the ears looked to hard, so softened them with touches of lighter flesh tones after they had dried so as not to pick up the dark paint from underneath. This was a big improvement. The ears were amongst others areas (mouth and eye) I fiddled around with for ages to try and get a convincing representation. As I wasn't happy to stop painting when my time with the sitter had run out, I finished off some of the finer details with the help of  a couple of photos.
 Looking at the painting later  I feel that the beard needs more suggestion of directional growth and a little more volume is needed in the hair over the forehead. Although the face has reflected the light from the window, I think the central part of the cheek could be blended more with surrounding tones and the whole face and neck might benefit from a glaze or two to tone it down. Funnily enough, the sitter seemed to be pleased with the results and said that he thought it was a good likeness.
As my tutor suggested, I could benefit from investigating skin tones further and to examine those of Euan Uglow's figure paintings. Indeed I did look closely at them, but wasn't able to find anything about the palette/s he normally uses. This is quite an old self portrait from 1964:
http://ruthborchard.org.uk/collection/euan-uglow/
So, I took some advice from a more experienced painter I know, especially of portraits, who also suggested using liquin as a glaze
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/reginacarbayo/9365470043/
I went over the skin tones, basing them loosely on Velasquez palette:

 4 After alterations -
photograph lower quality than
the first (above)

black, light red, yellow ochre and white. I had no black so I mixed something approximating black - prussian blue and burnt umber. For the head, facial and neck hair I also used a mix of phthalo green and scarlet lake. I know from what little experience I have, how much time can be wasted by using the wrong colour mixes and tone - it looks so obvious in the skin, if the idea is to obtain something convincing. I soon discovered that to obtain more accuracy I had to play down the tones slightly more than the first mixes. I mixed liquin into the later applications, this was more to help speed up the drying time than anything else. As paint becomes more transparent when liquin is combined with it, so becomes a glaze, I found it had great potential to add quite delicate transparency and  to light skin tones, although in my case I think it was rather crudely handled.
The areas I altered were to further soften the shadow to the ear, and general toning down of skin colour. The beard carefully rendered the beard to soften the transition between the beard and the skin The hair has been painted over the skin around the neck as the skin looked before like it growing over the hair. More hair has been added to the top of the forehead. I used thin wispy strokes all over the head hair to blend in with the extra chunk added to the front of the forehead using a mix of mostly phthalo green and scarlet lake and a small amount of the same was added to the top of the shirt for reflections and shadows. I do think there is an improvement in the skin and hair now, though I can't help thinking of stage make-up when I look at the face.

Exercise 4 Self Portrait

One of the experimental sketches I did
before embarking on the self portrait painting.
This one is done in oils.

On playing around with light, mid tone and dark backgrounds the one with the most contrast and impact was the midtone. This contrasts with the both the shadow side and the light side of my head when I half close my eyes. I did several sketches to prepare for this, they were very experimental - mostly taken from Emily Ball's book.
To make a convincing representation though, I will have to try an follow the next steps in a more formal exacting way than the sketches up to now as this is the impression I get from the brief  - at least to attempt somewhere near accurate proportions and tonal range. So, I tried sketching out certain individual facial features such as the eyes, nose and mouth just to become more familiar with them. It's surprising when  under close scrutiny, how many little nuances I spotted, that would otherwise go unnoticed.
 I decided to base my own palette one that Goya used for portraits, consisting of black, white, an earth red and yellow ochre. I would have like to use Burnt Sienna, but didn't have any so instead mixed cadmium red and burnt umber. The ground is a warm mid tone of cadmium red and burnt umber.
As I was afraid to jump straight in with paint, I started sketching the features in lightly with pencil. As I was doing this I moved away once of twice and had to try and gauge by sight what position my head was in beforehand - this was awkward and it's part of the reason my mouth kept moving around. Then, not before time I suddenly remembered from portraits on my drawing course, that I had put a couple of marks on the mirror and lined them up something on my face. The process was a bit more straightforward after that.
During the process of the painting my appearance changed from
something akin to the mad look of Salvador Dali after I had only the darks filled in, to a much inferior version of a Boticelli.

Self portrait - acrylics

Some of the problems I encountered were: 1. I had to maneouvre all the furniture in my small space to a position where I could hang a fabric behind me for the background. This meant I didn't have a lot of space in front of my easel to stand back and check things from a distance. Instead I moved the painting to where I could do that every now and again.
2. Setting up a mirror: my only other easel is a table easel and though not too big, it was a wall mirror and heavy, so I placed it on the easel on a large box on a table top to obtain the right height.
3. Light: to light one side of the face, I began with natural light, but this kept on changin, so I changed to a combination of artificail and natural light. Because I continued into the evening after the natural light had faded this added to the confusion. I tried to stick to the basic tones I put down at first but it wasn't easy.