1: I came across an image of a Picasso painting. (See copy below. Painting from 1965.)
2: It seemed to be a kind of self-portrait (as by an older man of one of his younger selves), and I thought to follow in the master’s footsteps, setting myself up with a mirror, some gouache paints, and with this idea of using the white space of the paper for much of the face and chest.
3: My son found my treatment of the eyes (my eyes? with my new sunglasses) was too zombie-like.
4: I was going to paint in the frames of the glasses, but decided instead to lay a recent poem on top.
5 : Picasso quoted by Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso, 1964:
Un peintre doit observer la nature, mais jamais la confondre avec la peinture. Elle n’est traduisible en peinture que par des signes. Il faut fortement viser à la ressemblance pour aboutir au signe. (A painter must observe nature, but never confuse this with painting. Nature can only be translated into painting by means of signs. You have to struggle to achieve a resemblance in order to end up with the signs.)
William Eaton 
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