Although the portrait is not quite a habitual genre for me, sometimes I want to try my hand in this field. The idea of ​​the portrait was born in the work on a series of paintings with peonies. Accidentally seeing my reflection in the mirror against the background of flowers arranged in the studio, I figured, why not.

The color of these floral works was too cold and a pink warm skin tone perfectly softened the ultramarine background and the saturated purple color of the peonies. Initially, I didnt plan to make the face the center of the composition, thinking it would be limited to fragments in reflection as additional color spots or, at most, to be some part of still life. But in the end, the habitual perception inclined my decision to a traditional self-portrait. In this work, I continued to master the palette knife, which allows to achieve an interesting contrasting and voluminous painting effects. That makes the painting more variable in texture but requires additional attention when working with color. You have to be careful in choosing the color while mixing wide strokes with a palette knife directly on the surface of the canvas. It is quite difficult to achieve a predictable result. But this is both the complexity and the pleasure of working. In any case, I would like to work with that technique again and again.