Portrait of Bill Self

For those of you not quite in the know, Bill Self (great name) is the coach of the Kansas University men's basketball team. Just last night he and the Jayhawks got their asses handed to them by Kentucky in the final game of the NCAA Tournament.

Since the game was boring, I opened up a new app on my iPad and painted this portrait of Self:



The program is called Artrage. $4.99 (which is just a hair less than a bottle of Bud at the Peter McManus Cafe). And really, quite amazing.

This is Self himself:



He has a nice squareness to his jaw and a good strong straight nose, and I thought, drawing freehand while watching him on the television, that if I could get those two features across, then write the words "Bill Self" across the top, that I'd be like hungry ducks on clean water--or whatever they say in Kansas to suggest a level of general contentment. Remind me to ask Lance the Photographer what they actually say--he might know.

None of this is important other than by way of drawing your attention to the technology at work. Really, quite amazing. If you look closely at the image you can see blunt brush strokes, some airbrushing around his jaw, paint applied directly from the tube, some scraping with a palette knife, and some other things. This, by the way, was the first time I'd ever used the app, so there is a good bit of experimentation going on, just to see what is what.

In your defense?
Yes. In my defense.
Defense wins ballgames, my friend.
Yes it does. Thus the disclaimer.

I'm currently reading Liar's Poker and Death Comes to Pemberley, based on the theory that one is best served by having one work of non-fiction and one of fiction concurrently active. Liar's Poker, as you likely know, is a Wall Street book by Michael Lewis. Death Comes to Pemberley is perhaps a little less obvious. Both a murder mystery written by P.D. James and a kind-of-fun riff on what things would be like at Pemberley five years or so after Elizabeth Bennet married Fitzwilliam Darcy, I am enjoying it at exactly the amount one might expect.

This would be Jane Austin we're talking about, yes?
Yes.
Who doesn't like Jane Austin? Your dead father would be proud.
Yes he would. God blessim.
Does it anger you that Mr. Darcy has a bigger Wikipedia page than you?
No.
Are you bringing all this Pemberley business up because you think your portrait of Bill Self might actually look more like Mr. Darcy than Mr. Self?
Yes.
Defense wins ballgames, my friend.
Yes it does.
Olivier as Heathcliff jumps to mind as well.
Yes he does.

Anyway, the technology is really quite marvelous, and you never have to wash your hands even once. And when the paint builds up on your iPad, you do this:



This presumes you're using acrylic paints.