September Self Portraits

This year is the year that we move into a new, more permanent space in Southeast Portland. We started out our year in a temporary spot on Killingsworth in an old church, owned by the Ethos Music Center (http://ethos.org/) and we are so grateful for their hospitality. They also provide after school music lessons to our kids: ukelele, guitar and choir.





Here we are in that space, where we resided until early October. Being the flexible bunch that we are we were able to carve out a very fun and functional space there. Our art studio consisted of a couple of shelves with a few bare essentials. Our first few projects were based on self portraits. We always start and end the year with a self portrait in order to chronicle the child's growth, in how they see themselves and in their skill.



This self portrait project was to illustrate a depiction of ourselves while exploring the technique of reverse painting. This is a technique that has been around since the Middle Ages and is usually done on glass. I found several plexiglass sheets at SCRAP (http://scrapaction.org/), my favorite place to find materials, which is much safer for the children to paint on.

I explained that essentially, we paint backwards. Things that we would usually add last to a painting we needed to add first. Elements such as black outlines, lips or the whites of the eyes had to be considered with this in mind. They totally got the concept and here are a few examples. ( the one above is hanging in a window). For some reason that I am trying to pinpoint, painting on a clear surface and then showing us the "back" gives a very pleasing, "finished" look.