I have sketched a few self-portraits but this is the first I have ever painted.

One of my favourite artists is Vincent van Gogh, and he painted many self-portraits in his personal style.  For this painting, I simplified the palette to blues as it is one of my favourite colours, and chose to do it in quite a loose way and in my style of black outlines.  When I was painting this, I happened to be listening to a CD of a collection of hymns sung by New Zealanders (put together by the Salvation Army), and the hymn ‘It is well with my soul” was my favourite.