Self-Portrait - Karen Oliver

What an amazing self-portrait it was. She was seated at the dining room table, facing a mirror propped on an easel and painted what she saw. It was unfathomable what she really saw but what was created awes everyone twenty-five years later. Her single pigtail on the left side of her head, painted in turquoise and outlined half in red and half in orange with a royal blue band holding it to her purple hair. The opposite pigtail was pink, similarly outlined in orange on one side and red on the other. Her forehead was yellow and her glasses, in metallic gold, enclosed a silver area that contained her piercing blue eyes, looking right at you. The bottom of her face resembled a clown in a way. Red clown nose, pink lips with a red line in the center and each cheek was a contrasting color, one turquoise and one purple. The left side of her chest contained a starburst of blue, black, orange and purple with a red center. More heart than I have ever seen. The other side showed a royal blue shoulder and the chest itself was green decorated with gold squares. The background, yellow and gold, orange and purple, light blue and green, with white spaces and even a few small figures, held the portrait in perfect balance. What is it that children see that leads to such freedom and beauty?