Brave Self Portrait

This is me, more or less. I painted a watercolor of myself a year ago for an online challenge (see the Watercolor Passion link). I took my little digital camera out by the lilacs, held it up, and took my own picture. I was peering over my dorky plastic reading glasses, because I thought that was how all my former students thought of me, and frankly I have them on more of the time than not. Then I went up to my little studio, sketched me, and did my utmost to make it look like me. It does, but more in attitude than actual fact. I entered the painting in a Wisconsin Regional Artists show last summer, and the judge called it "brave," which I took to mean unflattering. Then he went on to also say it was "unsuccessful." Ouch! OK, he did speak English as a second language and perhaps didn't have a kinder word than "unsuccessful" in his vocabulary, but I can't let that ruin a painting I worked hard on and spent a bundle to frame. There is an exhibet of self-portraits coming up in Monroe this summer; I think I'll enter it there. I also use it as my avatar on Shelfari, so it has become my online self.