First step - selfportrait

 

Our first task on 'fine arts' studies was self portrait.

Nowaday people comfortable by making selfies in front of camera. But I felt bunch of shame. Like that task breaks my personal boudaries.

Beyond the Screen: Why the Mirror Demands More Than the Selfie

We live in an era of hyper-visibility. At any moment, we can summon a polished, filtered version of ourselves with a tap of a screen. Selfies are instantaneous, curated, and frictionless. But when I hand an incoming fine arts student a small handheld mirror and ask them to translate their reflection onto paper or canvas using charcoal or paint, a collective tension settles over the studio.

The shoulders tense. The room goes quiet. Suddenly, the effortless confidence of digital self-presentation shatters against the heavy reality of raw observation.

The Vulnerability of True Seeing

As an instructor, I often witness a profound psychological shift during this first assignment. In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer writes about how we teach who we are, noting that good teaching requires a willingness to be vulnerable and truly seen. The same principle applies to learning how to create.

"We draw not to record what we look like, but to confront who we are when nobody is swiping."

A selfie asks: "How do I look to the world?" A self-portrait asks: "How do I endure looking at myself?"

When students experience a knot of shame or fear in front of the blank page, it is rarely about artistic skill. It is about confrontation. The mirror refuses to flatter. It captures fatigue, asymmetry, the subtle weight of unspoken thoughts, and the passage of time in ways that a smartphone camera’s automatic smoothing algorithms work hard to erase.

From Capturing to Contemplating

The philosopher and art critic John Berger taught us that seeing comes before words—and before digital likes. When we stare into a mirror for two hours to draw our own eyes, we stop consuming our image and start investigating it.

I tell my students: The shame you feel is not a roadblock; it is the threshold.

The moment you move past the desire to make a "pretty" picture or an idealized likeness, real art begins. You start noticing the way light falls across the bridge of your nose, the unique geometry of your jawline, and the history written into your own expression. You realize that a self-portrait is not a monument to your vanity, but an act of radical honesty.

But actually that task can be more attractive from perspective of using mixed techniques. Check portrait in collage or sculpture.

You can use 'yours' hands for studying anatomy as well. 

For proof check photo of my own hand sculpture in Class by choise article