"Watching You"--completed November 5, 2009. This is my first completed self-portrait. I did one earlier but ended up "improving it," only to destroy it. I am very satisfied with this one. In addition to my usual materials--colored pencil, oil pastels, oil sticks, and oil paints, I also used a palate knife and even some acrylic paint in a thin tube. My favorite part of the painting is the scarf. I started recreating the scarf I had worn and then, out of the blue, it started changing. I stopped before I went too far and it works! The headscarf I had worn was actually a sarong purchased in Hawaii. The Roman sandals came from my trip to London. The background, of course, is the botanical gardens. And the guy in the background? He was a photographer who was following around a bride-to-be, scoping out places for photo ops on her big day. We kept running into each other and courteously yielding so that we could both get our jobs done. I used the timer to take my own pictures and did not realize that he was in the background of one of the photos (in a slightly different location and wearing different colors) until I went to edit them.