"Self Portrait in the Sun"

20"x30" Acrylic on Canvas

©Andy Wood

NFS

I do not paint many self-portraits and when I do they are often experiments in technique or method. I tried to do this one using only transparent layers of paint, working from light to dark which is primarily a watercolour technique. I worked from a series of photos which I took using the self timer. I had to run, sit down and compose myself in the few seconds after I had pressed the shutter. I did not feel well (too much sun) and the sunbed was extraordinarily uncomfortable. The hat and the shoes were brand new. The hat, shoes, villa, sunbed and I were in the Algarve sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s.