Sunday 13 October 2013

An Army of Me

Hello all!!

I have to admit, I photograph very well. In fact, I look better on pictures than I do in real life. :-)

Over the years, I have been lucky to have had people paint or draw pictures of me quite a few times. These days, children from my school feel compelled to draw a picture of me on a very regular basis. I love their impressions of me. They are always spot on. These are just a few. I have many, many more, but can't find them at the moment. This first one was done in a rush. Nonetheless, I love it (click on the image to see it better and to see the detail):



These next two are my favourite ones. They've been done last year when I had a bob haircut. I look slightly different now as I have a pixie haircut, but essentially, this is still me. I am smiling in all of them, so I am happy that that is how they see me.



Don't you think they are fabulous? I do. I'll probably keep them for the rest of my life.

The next one is a cartoon of me. Someone I got on very well with gave me this as a Xmas present. Until he gave it to me, I didn't know, how much he liked me. In fact, I didn't know he knew me as well as he did. But I guess, he watched from afar and commissioned someone to do his impression of me. All the details are there: I am standing on a stage, wearing my heels and my fairy skirt. There is even a Bosnian flag on my coat. The necklace I am wearing is exactly the same, and he even included a big flowery hat I had. In fact, down to the shirt, coat and the bag - he got me in one! This cartoon has a proud place on my bookshelf with all my theatre books and I think of this person very often: 


And then, there is a puppet of me!!! I did a performance a few years ago where I played an older woman, wearing my mum's vintage coat. My scenes were off stage. Everything I did was transmitted on the video projection on stage while this little one was on stage the whole time, being me. At the end of the performance I come on stage and we two meet for the first time. We acknowledge each other and the play ends. At the end of the run, the girl who made me, gave me "myself" as a present. One of my favourite presents of all time. She has the same costume as I did in the play, but I can't find any pictures from the performance. She now sits at the top of my bookshelf, looking over everything I do and everything that happens in there. Here is how I look in the miniature:


And here is us together on the bus posing. As you can see from my smile, I am very, very happy:


I now need a painter to paint me. My life long wish was to be painted by Lucien Freud, but that is never going to happen now that he is no longer with us (as if that was going to happen anyway?!), so I have to look for someone else. In fact, I won't look, I'll wait until someone gets inspired and paints me. A girl can dream, right?

Have you got pictures/ puppets/ cartoons/ paintings of yourself done by other people? What kind of impression do you think you make on people on a daily basis?

Whatever you do, enjoy it and have a lovely week.

Red xx




4 comments:

Saf said...

Lovely post full of lovely images of lovely Red. What a great idea of a theme for a blog. xx

Diane said...

What a fabulous post and I really love the cartoon. I have one painting of myself which I did about 40 years ago of myself on one of my horses. It still hangs in my office. I also have a great colour drawing that my Mum had done when I was about 5 holding her St Bernard which is as big as I am :-) I would love to start painting again but time is always against me!! Have a good week. Diane

Unknown said...

How great that you have all these portraits. I love that 2nd one, it almost looks like an advertisment drawing! I don't think you should give up on your Lucien Freud wish--I'm sure you could find someone who paints in a similar style. Thanks for sharing all these great pics of you :)

Natalia | Look-A-Porter said...

That's so wonderful and special! I love the kids drawings, always so charming. x