What I Learned Painting a Self-Portrait in the Nude

About bodies and self-love.

Yes, you’re right. That’s not me.

I didn’t put the photo up top. For a variety of reasons. One of which is its verticle orientation. The other is, maybe I’m not ready to have it flashed about. Or, maybe I want you to wait for it…

Anyway, I heartily recommend doing this even if you don’t fancy yourself as an artist. I certainly am not. Consider it mirror work or self-love therapy.

So what I did was, I got a big, almost square mirror and a big, almost square watercolor paper block.

Watercolor paper comes in thick pads called blocks. They’re stuck together on all four sides so you can work on it without the paper buckling from the water. Once it’s dried — flat — there’s a little gap in the sticky stuff where you can insert a knife blade and loosen up your masterpiece.

I set the mirror up in the living room, given I was living alone at the time. I arranged my art supplies — watercolors, water, brushes, paper towels, and the block. Then I took off my clothes and arranged myself in a sustainable pose, centered in the mirror.

I drew first with a pencil, lightly, so I’d know where to apply the paint. I hadn’t done a lot of watercolor up to that point. So the whole thing was a huge experiment.

Being naked while I did this felt, well, naked. I was safe, the curtains were closed. But it felt deliciously sensuous and a bit naughty. Even though I had no intention of displaying me or the painting anywhere except my own rooms.

Now usually when I look in the mirror, especially naked, there’s a lot of self-talk. And it’s not pretty. It’s all about how fat I am, how low my breasts hang, especially in this position where they graze along my abdomen.

Not to mention the dent in my right thigh from where a car hit me once. Or the long scar running from my abdomen to my pubes — a proud vestige from my Hodgkins healing days.

This was different.

This time I wasn’t judging my body. I was studying and learning my body so I could figure out where the lines go. I measured proportions, not against a standard of beauty, but of parts in relation to each other and the edge of the page.

The moment I started drawing, there were two images of me. One in the mirror; one on the page — two possible images to slander.

Only I didn’t. I stayed in apprentice mode with my learning hat on, looking up, guestimating, looking down, copying, tracing, shading, hedging the contours as best I could.

I wasn’t brand new to life drawing. I had done it years and years ago in a student group at Pratt Institute, where I worked part-time as a life drawing model. But that was eons ago. And this time, I was the artist, and the model all rolled into one.

I had to be a good student, follow the established etiquette, and appreciate the model. Honor her contours with the caress of a line. Honor her three-dimensionality with a gradual deepening and darkening of color tone to shade and shadow. To sculpt her on the page, so to speak. To bring her to life using line, color, and contrast.

This became a bona fide labor of love. I followed the ridge tops of the hills and valleys of my body by caressing them with my eyes and blessing them on the page. Rather like those photos of a lovely landscape that when you look closer reveals the torso of a woman. The body was my geography lesson.

The face, well, not so much. It turned into a Picasso-esque distortion, but all the more enduring for the love I lavished in the process.

I had no choice but to forgive the way the head is too big and one leg as well. It’s all the more endearing for the distortion. In the same way, I adored my cat, Tweetums, all the more with her deformed paw, stunted tail, and her avoirdupois body.

If it works for pets, why not me? And if my body truly was that far off, I’d still be challenged to find a way to love all of me, as many of my friends have courageously demonstrated.

The me in the mirror now.

My conversation in the mirror changed forever. I am no longer just a woman with ample curves.

I am an ever-changing landscape, the distant hills in the day’s ever-changing light. I am a precious complexity of lines, shapes, colors as much as muscle, bone, and skin. I am a piece of work. Oops, I am a work of art. I am Michelangelo, and the Mona Lisa rolled into one. Well, maybe a bit more Venus on the Half Shell than Mona.

Now I’m visible to myself in a new way, with a new depth of appreciation and well, dare I say it, love.

If I can have this experience, you can, too.

By all means, do this even if the only thing on your brush is water, and you are pretending Picasso. It’s an hour or a day well spent. Trust me. I know.

Many thanks to Diane Overcash whose inspiration led to this story.

Here’s how to do the thing you think you’re too old or scared to do.

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times.