some of the finest portraits are the portraits of the artist's relations and friends. Gainsborough painted his own daughters. Some of Rubens' best portraits are those of his wife Helena; Rembrandt was for ever painting himself, and his clever rubicund face eyes us shrewdly from many a canvas; and there is the painting of Van Dyck himself with the sunflower.
And so we narrow our portrait-drawing down to ourselves. If you are driven to the drawing and painting of yourself (and it is always easier to draw other people, because one cannot back away from one's self and so get a good 'general' view), and you are presumably standing before a looking-glass, remember this—you are drawing yourself not actually as you are but a size smaller.
A mirror reduces and makes us appear smaller, and this reduction forces the little things upon us at the expense of the more important.
It is very easy to prove this. Stand a few paces away from the looking-glass and ask some one to dab with a colour-brush the reflection of your head, the crest of your head and the tip of your chin, and measure this space with the brush against your own face. You will find that the looking-glass face is about a third the size of your own.
The art of catching a likeness, then, brings us to this point. We must first of all have good ground-work. We must practice drawing faces and features of various people in various positions.
We must draw with knowledge, not guessing at things, sketching at random and trusting to luck.
We must be prepared to catch the fleeting look; we must hold ourselves, as it were, on the very tiptoe of expectancy for the smile, the glance, the pout, the thoughtful or mirthful expression.
A line well expressed will send our hopes soaring high, and a line faulty and wrong will dash all those hopes to the ground. Never be daunted by mistakes, but take your courage in both hands and persevere.
