Annual Self Portrait 2021

As the drawing seems to be going well at the moment, what better time for a self portrait?  I've decided that I need to do a self portrait every year and that this will be my 2021 effort.  I've changed the name of my last self portrait, labelling it as my 2020 self portrait.

I started with some contour drawing, being especially careful with the eyes, which is where I started.  This is a change from last year when I started from the shape between the far cheek and the nose, on advice from Betty Edwards.   After the drawing was down, I added colour using some impressionistic hues that I could see in the photo I was working from.  Which reminds me - this was working from a photo rather than a mirror, so this must be what I really look like.

I'm happy with how this turned out - the colours are generally great.  I'm not keen on the background green though.  I originally added background colour so I could paint some negative white hair on the back of my head.  But I didn’t like the resulting white shape, so added some grey.  This meant I didn't really need the green background.  If it were possible, I'd remove the background and leave it white.  I'd probably remove the neck too.

Anyway, not bad.  I'm still not sure whether I prefer this year's or last year's - they're very different.