I wish they would only take me as I am.

Me.
Make-up: me
No photoshop or other editing involved

I don't usually talk about my work because I like my pictures to speak for themselves.
However, because this photograph is being viewed with a greater frequency than most of my others, I will discuss it.

Inspiration:

Someone pointed out to me a few years ago that one of Van Gogh's self-portraits reminded them of me. I agreed. And after reading a biography about Vincent, I noted our personalities are also much alike. Except I'm trying to fix myself and not let my demons get the better of me.

When considering subjects to transform myself into, I typically like to choose someone I already have somewhat of a resemblance to. Obviously, I'm not going to attempt to transform myself into Samuel L. Jackson. That would just be silly.

In 1993, I took a photo of myself and tried "Van Goghing" it by adding strokes with felt markers. The result wasn't very satisfactory.

Then in 2009, I took another photo of myself dressed in Van Gogh style clothing, and mimicking his expression. I used Photoshop to change my hair color to red. The photo looked good, but it wasn't immediately obvious who I was meant to be.

Halloween 2010 came around... any excuse to dress up! I decided I would do the Van Gogh thing again, only this time make myself instantly recognizable as the famous, tortured artist.
I used whatever I had lying around... some cheap grease paint.... nearly empty tubes of acrylic paint.... and the remnants of an old can of latex house paint. The jacket I purchased from a thrift store, but I didn't notice until I got it home that it had been used as a toilet by a cat. I tried dry cleaning it and spraying it with cat pee remover, but nothing worked on it. The smell was gagging me the entire time I worked on the jacket, and when I wore it to a party. Yuck!

Execution:
I painted the jacket (and a waistcoat which isn't visible in this picture) with extremely watered down blue, latex, house paint mixed with green and white acrylic paint. I had to dilute it so much because I didn't have very much. I applied it to the garment with 2 different size brushes.

Using a fine paint brush, it took me about 2.5 hours to apply the make-up. Because it was poor quality make-up, it didn't adhere very well, and just sort of kept disappearing. I kept having to go over and over the same spots repeatedly. It never did stick to my ear, or around the nostrils and eyes.
And then I ran out of the stuff and couldn't finish my neck.
Oh well. It got the point across.

Response To Feedback:
1. People ask why the wall isn't painted. The main reason is I like it better this way because the plain wall provides more of a contrast with the painty me.
But even I had wanted to:
a.) I wasn't at home, and my hostess would not have been happy if I painted her wall.
b.) I ran out of paint doing my jacket and had no money for any more anyway.

2.) Other people have dressed up as Van Gogh (just do a Google search). Other artists have put paint on humans to make them look like paintings (Alexa Meade -- brilliant artist). Other artists have adopted different personae in their self-portraits (Cindy Sherman -- also brilliant artist). I am accused of ripping them off.
I don't claim to be doing anything original. However, I am not ripping anyone off. I have been transforming myself as far back as I can remember.

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Background Info:

I did not start out as a photographic artist. I started out as a painter when I was a child. I had a cheap little Instamatic camera, but I did not think of photography as being an art. As far as I was concerned, real art involved painting and drawing.

Nevertheless, when I was in my early 20s, I took a photography course at college. I learned how to operate a manual SLR camera, and acquired darkroom/developing skills. Unfortunately, even though I had found a new love and respect for the medium, I could not afford the film and processing costs. So once again, I went back to painting for a few years.

Then, in 2002, I purchased a Fuji FinePix 3800 digital point and shoot camera. All of a sudden, a new world opened up for me. I no longer had to worry about development costs, and was free to experiment without fear of wasting film. The only problem was that the resolution was only 3.2MP.

I really wished that I could obtain a better camera... one with a higher resolution... one that I could manually operate... a DSLR. But being on a very low income, I just could not afford to buy one.
Then one day in July 2007, I checked my bank balance and found $54,000 in it. I assumed the bank had made a mistake, so I just left it there. Three months later, it was still sitting there. And all I could think about was really wanting a proper camera. So I decided I would just borrow $1000 of the $54,000 in order to buy myself a Canon Rebel XTi. As soon as I got it home, I called the bank to say that they must have made a mistake and that there was a very large sum of money in my account. At first, they laughed and would not take me seriously. But I insisted. The next thing I knew, I found myself threatened with being charged with theft and was ordered to pay back the money I had spent -- immediately. But I couldn't pay it back immediately because I only get $1,000 a month, and that mostly goes to my rent, transportation, and food.. Thankfully, my father helped me out and I was able to pay the bank back.
But, even though it was all very stressful, at least I now have a decent enough camera. :)

Anyway... I digress.

This picture is just one of many in which I have used myself as a model.

Ever since I was a very small child, I have dressed myself up in costumes and make-up to transform myself into different personae. One of my earliest transformations involved turning myself into the Incredible Hulk, with the help of green poster paint.

Since then, I have taken on a variety of characters, including:
Boy George
Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran
David Bowie
Gary Numan
Madonna
Kurt Cobain
Edward Norton
Hannibal Lecter
Wolverine
Vincent Van Gogh
Queen Elizabeth II
Captain Jack Sparrow
Mr. Tumnus The Faun
Alice Cooper
Klaus Nomi
Henry from Eraserhead
Frank Booth from Blue Velvet
Alex from A Clockwork Orange
Mortiis
Jesus
Satan
Vampires
Zombies
Ian Brady
A spaceman
An elderly arab man
... and many more.

I don't know why I do it. I just do.

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You can see me as Edward Norton here in "60 Second Fight Club" made by Jungle Media Studios.