Jon Amdall Self Portrait
It might be sort of weird how I’m phrasing this title – a “Jon Amdall Self Portrait”…painted by Jon Amdall…written by Jon Amdall. That’s a lot of weird third person references. But, since it’s the latest painting I’ve done of myself, and I’d kind of like to index this thing and let search engines pick it up, I figured I’d better actually have my name listed.
Anyhow, that’s exactly what this is – another self portrait. I don’t do a ton of these, but I find trying to portray yourself is a pretty useful measure of how an artist is progressing and learning. I did a couple over the four or five years I was doing a lot of colored pencil drawings, and could see some definite progress as I moved from graphite to color and got more practice. Early in my oil painting journey, I think my 10th or 11th one, I attempted a self-portrait. It wasn’t great; actually not the worst likeness, but not really a good painting. And I had to lean on graphite pencil to give myself some guiderails.
At this point in time, around the mid-40s of my oil paint portrait tally, I was fully invested in freehand painting without using measuring tools. And since I know my face better than probably any other, I figured this might be the ultimate test. Could I capture my own likeness without any proportional divider or ruler? As it turned out, yes I could! The likeness was pretty well on point, much more so I think than the previous one. I was able to accurately depict many of the traits that make me look like myself, such as my deep set eyes, long face, and prominent nose. The time-lapse video distorts the image to some extent because of the angle, but I think in a still image you can get a good sense.
And lastly, for the “painting to music” time lapse video on this one, I used a fairly popular royalty free classical piece. This one is set to the Marriage of Figaro Overture by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Here’s the painting set to classical music: