Portraits of Exhaustion

The two self portraits above were painted
in March as a release from several months
of nearly unbroken grinding effort to finish
print projects. The gaunt bleak-eyed visage
is an accurate portrayal of the state of spent
energy I was suffering from. I painted it the
day after I'd worked a continuous 36 hour session
to finish a project. I'd slept about six hours
and decided to capture the dead stare of the
zombie I saw in the mirror. Its not a very
pleasant painting, but it's certainly honest!
The second smiling portrait was an attempt
to nudge my attitude back toward my usual
cheery demeanor. ( I think the eyes still
look exhausted though.)