“Who painted the first selfie?”

According to my research, the first known self-depiction, or selfie, was this painting done by Jan van Eyck in the year 1433.

I like to imagine cave men were drawing themselves and their friends in battle on those cave walls, but we’ll never really know.

My art group then presented a challenge to paint a self-portrait. After cringing a little, flipping through my mental Rolodex of excuses of why I should sit this exercise out, I finally realized that my discomfort at the idea is probably the best sign I should go ahead and follow in the footsteps of artists like van Eyck, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and many of my idols and make an attempt at a selfie.

Alas… a selfie:

I look forward to creating another self-portrait in a few years to see how my style evolves. This is acrylic on woodblock done with both brushwork and palette knives.

Am now wishing I had wrapped a head scarf on my head like Jan did. Very cool.