It’s already February. (꒪Д꒪)ノ In order to enter a face theme art contest at Cameback Gallery, I did my first ever self portrait based on a selfie.

I’m not a selfie person. My photo album is saturated with my kids daily snap shots. But on that day when I looked through my photos, I found out one selfie that I took at a chemistry lab where I was working. If I remember correctly, the reason why I took this photo that day was my lipstick. I was wearing MAC Russian Red.

To me this was my last resort of feminine character among group of elderly men who worked in industry over decades. I had female co-workers in the lab but they rarely put on any makeup, not to mention MAC Russian Red. It reminds me the days that I had to put myself behind all personal protection equipment, including goggle, lab coat and sometimes face shield. It is not that I didn’t enjoy the lab environment. I just simply needed something that could be a “ME” statement. The company I was working for was old school style. They probably never saw someone wearing a classic blue toned red lipstick at work.

ㄟ( ▔, ▔ )ㄏ

The lab coat was navy blue. I changed it into regular white color in order to match the all blue background. I wanted to preserve all warm tone to my skin. It felt awkward to paint self portrait, especially when you had to stare at your own photo for hours. All kinds of questions run through my head. Should I paint my face slimmer? Maybe I can make my skin tone paler? Should I eliminate my freckles? In the end I decided to stick with the selfie, to who I am.

PS: the reflection on my goggle was the parking lot outside the facility building. (´^ω^`)

FYI, Jerry’s Artarama also holds a self portrait contest, please feel free to submit if you are interested~