Creating a Self-Portrait

The challenge of creating a likeness of the human face has preoccupied artists since the Classical Age. Durer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Cezanne are amongst the many great painters who produced famous self-portraits, using techniques that ranged from the fleeting sketch to the finished painting and represented every variation of materials and media. This study adopts a step-by-step approach to explain how individual artists using different media have built up their own self-portraits. While concentrating on watercolour, the text examines many styles and leads the student artist through a structured course in the use of media such as crayon, pencil, charcoal and oil.