Art needs a certain amount of creativity and this creativity can take on many forms. Sometimes one kind of creativity can spill over into another though the level of expertise in the new field can be somewhat limited at times and sometimes you would be surprised at a certain level of expertise. When you look at famous family portraits and paintings over time, you can see that a certain amount of creativity and skill has gone into painting those pictures. In fact the longer you study them, the more fascinated you will become and soon you will be finding a new nuance every time you look at it.

The thing about art is that it remains fascinating no matter what form it takes or what media it uses like these beautiful oil pastel art and paintings. The colors and shades may be milder but the impact of the art is in no way reduced. Art also includes the art of writing as will be evidenced by the best books to read before you die.

When an author sits down to write a book, he or she shares a part of his or her inner self with the world. You may not even realize it when you are reading and indeed enjoying a book, but the author actually shared a part of his or her inner most thoughts, emotions and even a piece of his or her soul. That is why authors are known to shift from one art form to another. Their creativity sometimes gets blocked and it can be sometimes released when they try their hand at something else.

In case you thought that writing is the only way authors expressed themselves, then you would be wrong. How? You ask. The fact is creativity can actually spill from one form to another and some authors are actually known to even paint. In this article you can actually see the evidence of this as 20 authors have actually come up with portraits of themselves.

Well, not all of them were exactly experts at painting but this does not matter as the self portraits are not meant to be appreciated the artistic talents of themselves. In fact, you can see some aspects of their inner self and thought process in the self portraits they have painted. We have tell you though, that some of them are simply very basic pencil or pen drawings but you have to appreciate them for what they are – an attempt at making self portraits.

Famous Self Portrait Paintings

Flannery O’Connor, with attendant fair fowl (of course), 1953

Sylvia Plath, 1951

Henry Miller, 1946

e.e. cummings, 1939

Kurt Vonnegut, 1995

Margaret Atwood, 1975

Charles Bukowski, date unknown.

William S. Burroughs, 1959

Mark Twain, 1902.

Allen Ginsberg, 1994.

Cormac McCarthy, 1975.

Edgar Allan Poe, date unknown.

Jack Kerouac, c. 1960.

Charles Baudelaire, 1860.

Truman Capote, date unknown.

Hunter S. Thompson, c. 1960.

Hermann Hesse, 1917.

Tom Wolfe, 1975.

D.H. Lawrence, 1929.

Jorge Luis Borges, after he had gone blind, 1975.

A look at the above paintings, which are self portraits, can be a real eye opener for you and it is a pleasant surprise to see that some of them have actually painted some really good portraits. Some of them are just simple attempts at an art form that is not familiar to them and the end result while not exactly the prettiest is something that is to be appreciated for the effort that has gone into it.

Some of these self-portraits are actually humorous as they are an expression of how they perceive themselves. The wide range of talent shown in these collection of self portraits will leave you feeling wonderful.