This self-portrait contains experiments with the subject, materials and self-promotion.

For this I used a very small makeup mirror. That was an interesting – nearly psychedelic – experience. One only sees a small part at a time, but one of course always moves and the eyes rotate and change the view and the perspective is different when switching eyes. It’s a constant flux and tough to stay focussed … and keep the hand up with the mirror all the time. It’s worth it though, as it gives a bit of a more realistic result – was to how the eyes see things in the real world. Rarely do we look at something with the viewer and subject being still for more than a few seconds.

I had some pastel paper lying around, that I always wanted to try with inks. It gave me the chance to use an white acrylic pen to bring out highlights. I was especially interested in the reflections on the eye and glasses…. and the occasional grey hair showing up.

And then I’m still experimenting with self promotion. I’ve posted this to reddit and got 700 up-votes. This let to 8000 views on the deviant-art page of the portrait. I did it similarly for the Bruce Lee quote – which had then 33.000 on the imgur link.
The problem with these postings is that I don’t post direct links to my page, nor the patreon page that I hope people will end up with. These are kind of tricky, as direct self-promotion is not kindly seen on reddit. The result is that I got zero vistors to my own pages – nor any sales or such. It’s in a way understandable – but in another perspective one could think that at least some people would search for the page, or ask for more info. That’s 40.000 people seeing the images, many giving positive votes… but no tangible results.

This wont put me in despair – I enjoy making these drawings anyways. But I’ll have to figure that out if I want to live off my personal art.

“Self Portrait” – Ink and acrylics on 24 x 32cm pastel paper