My self portrait process.

I find myself to be the easiest person to paint, perhaps because I am so accustomed to seeing my facial features. Sometimes when Im painting a face just out of my imagination it somehow ends up looking like me. Anyway I was up late at night and suddenly had a vision of myself with my hand extended outward with a glowing seed of life hovering above it. The seed of life is a stage along the formation of the flower of life, which is the ultimate form of sacred geometry. It is like the blueprint of creation. It has so much significance in my life as I’ve had profound psychedelic experiences where I was able to see it and understand its inner workings.

I started this painting by first taking a reference photo of myself in a dark room with light coming from in front of me.

I then proceeded to paint the canvas all black. I really enjoy painting this way because its kind of like working backwards. Bringing out the image from the darkness. It also helps with establishing shadows and darker areas like my hair.

After the black dries up I start to sketch myself out onto the canvas then painting in layers from dark to light. I only paint the more dominant areas that stand out to me and I fade the rest of my figure into the background.

These photos are from my snapchat by the way which you can feel free to add me on, I always post photos of the process behind my paintings and drawings. My snapchat username is MyVisionaryArt

But yes throught my process I added lines within my body representing wood/trees. I’ve always felt like our fingerprints are like the rings around a tree and they show how old our souls are. But thats just my personal philosophy.

Looking at this stage that I was in I began to see more of the vision come together and could see flowers around me and the full moon illuminating in the background with rainbow spectrums coming from it. So I started bringing that out as well. I also created a border around the entire image to give it a framed look and added some designs of eyes within those border lines.

Next thing you know I had completed my self portrait. Ofcourse I can always add more and refine the details etc. Which I more than likely will but for now just seeing this image infront of me was fulfilling of the vision I saw in my minds eye. It took me two days to complete and was done using acrylic paint.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this sneak peek into my process! There will be much more similar content to come! Thank you for engaging with my post and as always I hope you have a beautiful moment wherever you may be, one love.

-Eddie Martinez
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