revisiting some older selfportraits
I made a self portrait yesterday and @crok suggested showing some older versions aswell. So why not. It might be interesting to put some of them together and see some longterm progress, so here we go.
First one is from 2006. I did a one year in Oriveden opisto. It is an adult college where you can take one year course in fine art, comics, music and writing. Have to say It was one of the best years of my life. They had excellent teachers with classes for different techniques. You get to live there with people who have same aspirations and there is a studio open for 24 hours a day. If you are thinking of art school you may want to take a course like that in preparation, if you have the chance.
oil on fiberboard
Next one is titled "keen on apathy" 2007. This is was made during the summer after the adult college. After a intense year like that living with people, i was suddenly living by just myself again. I'm not sure if the entrance exams were held already to art school, but i did not know if i was getting in. I did not get selected straight away, i was on the first standby position. I had applied in years before but had not been invited to the exams.
There was a description found on my DA site:
"I wasnt feeling very good about myself around the time i made this. Thought of making another selfportrait came to me while reading Teemu Mäki's Visible darkness.Cant remember excactly what kind of feelings went through me while in the process but finishing it gave me a sort of peace. atleast for a little while.
Maybe its a good idea to do one like once a year to see how youve changed(internally)."
Maybe it is, haha
watercolor on paper
So i did manage to get in. This is from a drawing class first year. The professor was very adamant that drawing is a skill that anyone can learn, and singing would be too. Luckily we did not have to sing in class. I do believe there is truth to it, if you have the motivation to put the time and effort in. I think we are too quick to accept the current state of things as the ultimate position without even trying.
pencil and charcoal on paper
This one is a little different, something i painted from a dream. No beard.
There was like a art lottery where we would donate works and i gave this in. it was one of the staff , a lady who managed the art supplies, who won this. I cherish that expression on her face and the laughter forever. I don't think she would hang this on her wall. I think this is from first year before that drawing class, but it suits better here.
oil on canvas
Here is this was made around 2009, so it's second or third year of my studies. In the facebook description it says summer, but i think it's actually from christmas break. So there was this girl...
windows paint
And here is the pic from yesterday. There has been some development over the years i suppose, but I still prefer wear black t-shirts.
windows paint
i'll throw in the sign post from few weeks back also for reference.
edit: Let's put this one in too. What a face. Purpose is not to look nice but to study and make an interesting drawing.
Mikko Lyytinen
Visual Artist
Follow me @mikkolyytinen
check out these recent posts from me aswell:
https://steemit.com/contest/@mikkolyytinen/steemit-mascot-contest-entry
https://steemit.com/tattoostorycontest/@mikkolyytinen/tattoo-story-contest-entry-the-lizard
https://steemit.com/art/@mikkolyytinen/ink-and-watercolor
https://steemit.com/art/@mikkolyytinen/self-portrait
Awesome self portraits . I really like the one with the rat head the best <3 A lot of my best art ideas come to me in dreams too
Thank you, it is one of my weird favourites aswell. Dreams can be a great source of inspiration indeed, i used to pay more attention to them before. Do you keep a dream diary or something like that?
Really a fine post. Are any of them done with a mirror?
Thank you. First three are, i may have worked on some without it for a while. Like the watercolor one i did from bathroom mirror, but painted some of it on the washing machine or floor. Only the rat one is without reference on the face. first paint one is from webcam feed and last one is from picture there
I have considered doing some selfportraits with a mirror. I kind of featured a lot in my own paintings ten years ago, but that was mostly composed from photo. The mirror gives things a whole other feel. Or, actually... all observation drawings do.
Absolutely agree about the mirror it is very personal and It can be a real challenge to be objective. With photo you have already distanced yourself somehow and there can be some flatness to it, depending on the process.
Great work ! I like it a lot ! Keep it up !
Thank you, i will!
You are kinda intense...haha, so good!
Thanks :D Some people have said i can look scary when they have first met me. I have a small problem with eyes that only got diagnosed few years ago but has propably been developing for a long time. So i focus quite hard when i look at things, or something like that..
Not scary, just concentrated youness...hehe
Like it!
Thank you. That was a good reminder about the sizes of pics, i've been wondering if my images are too slow to load.
Great work Mikko!
Thank you
Great work. This one is my favourite:
There's is just something that keeps drawing my eye back to it.
Thank you. I was just getting to know oil paints back then and was working with very limited palette, i guess inspired from some horror movies and literature.
All works are great. Thanks.
Thank you :)
Great variety of styles but all relate as being your portrait. That school sounds interesting. Where is it? Good work.
Thank you. The college resides in Orivesi which is a small town near Tampere in Finland. Not much going on there so there wasn't much to do besides art, which was the point :) It was a private college so there was a tuition, but you could get student allowance which pretty much covered it. The proper art school that I went to after that is where i live now in Lahti. I mean was. For a moment i forgot it was shutdown.
Even though you are a bit dark you still have the palette and technique to support it and make art out of it.
Great skills I especially like your oils amd your color selection on this background
the shadows of blue are just spot on.
I would love to see some more colorful designs of you it seems that you can work with shades almost perfect, it is a shame to wast that talent in shades of black.
I am following you! I am eager to see what you will create or what you have already created. as those as you said are prime works.
Cheers welcome to steemit!
Thanks, there has been some time from these works here.. Here is my first steemit post from just about four weeks ago with some pictures from my latest exhibition:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@mikkolyytinen/hi-i-am-visual-artist-from-finland-ok-here-goes-hope-these-images-work