I never paint self portraits, so this is entirely new for me. In fact, the figure started out life in my head as a 1950s French model with a long cigarette. However, I saw myself staring out of the emotion I was trying to convey so I guessed it would be easiest to just put me in the piece. My inspiration: those great 50s-60s advertisements done in watercolor. Usually they were for something mundane, but always beautiful and fluid.
