"Peter" (oil on stretched canvas; 9" x 12") nfs

nfs

During the campus visit to the University of Minnesota, the alma mater of both of us, last summer, I caught my dear husband at a pensive moment.  I don't know what he is thinking.  He looks melancholy.  Perhaps he is a little sad at the prospect of his baby growing and leaving her nest.  The University of Minnesota is our daughter's first choice; I am happy to report that she is already accepted. 

"Birthday Cake" (oil on stretched canvas; 14" x 11") nfs

nfs

I don't know why, but I have always been shy about painting myself.  But as a practice, because only practice makes perfect and I need models, I decided to paint a self-portrait, using a photo my daughter took on my last birthday.  I am looking at a candle-lit chocolate cake.  Don't I look happy?

The hardest part was naturally the mouth, as the famous John Singer Sargent said, a portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth!  I am not sure whether it is exactly me, but it must be close enough.  All the people who saw it knew immediately that it was a self-portrait.  Below are some of the step-by-step pictures.