Misunderstood

 "What did we use to color these self portraits?"  This is a chalk pastel self portrait and I want to share it because it is me, misread.  Often people look at me or hear me speak and they will form a perception of me that is incorrect.  I have created this by not following all the guidelines.  First of all the head was suppose to be a circle, the shoulders an "L" shape and I believe the line in the middle of my head was supposed to be dark and finally the colors in the circle were supposed to be only four and in each quadrant of the circle.  So here is why I defied instruction......

I initially drew a circle but then flipped my paper and drew the shape you see.  This shows my face as harder and perhaps scarier.  As I drew this shape I went over it a couple more times to darken and thicken the line because I am often told that when people initially meet me, they can be intimidated by my appearance.  On the outside I display a hard shell and for many years I have tried different techniques to soften my features, but I don't believe they have helped as I continue to receive comments, "You know when I first met you......."

I wanted to draw my shoulders sloped because  I feel that I am not really a "square" and plain person.  So I pictured myself with more rounded shoulders to better represent me.  I don't know why we were supposed to draw the line in the middle, but I wanted to make sure it was not a place where the eye goes, so I decided to make it lighter but to still be there. 

I wanted to color the bottom two quadrants by going with a  darker color first and getting lighter as a representation of the outer shell that I have.  Then the colors closer in represent the lightness, humbleness, honesty, integrity that I believe to be a better representation of me.  I left the bottom a little darker than the top of my head because people tend to focus on the face not the top of the head and for this reason I made the top of my head brighter.

I chose red as the center because then people would see it as my heart and the colors surrounding my heart are those that are friendly, accepting, stand for openness and acceptance.  The final three colors of the background, blue - red - yellow represent the colors of Superman (Truth, Justice and the American way).  Kidding aside, I heard that to sell your home color the door yellow because it is a welcoming and friendly color that brings peace.  The blue represents "likeability" and the red represents my desire for adventure and my spontaneity.

So that's me...often misunderstood on the outside but quite understanding and colourful on the inside : )