Painting a self portrait is a pretty daunting thing to do – and I have been avoiding it for years. It has such a long tradition and almost all significant women painters have left an example, so it’s quite exciting to follow in their footsteps.

I am used to painting large scale portraits of women, examining their faces, studying the features and coming to grips their the shapes and shadows the face presents. I often play around with images on the computer for hours, staring at the face in front of me trying to familiarise myself with it.

In this case though I am staring at my own face, but I do not need to study the shapes and features as they are all too familiar. It feels very strange and self indulgent to be staring at my own face and to then paint it on a large scale – especially when I step back from it and go to look at it as an image and then am confronted with my own face looking back at me.

At the same time it is quite fascinating how much easier it is to paint my own face because the shapes come naturally. I suppose it is similar to way that as children and often even as adults we find it easier to draw/paint someone of our own sex as the shapes are more familiar and therefore come more naturally to us.

In any case it is quite an experience …