Words on the watercolor are from Vincent van Gogh's letter to Theo van Gogh (Cuesmes, July 1880). Neal ran away only to discover that all that he was running away from is still with him.
This was an exercise in taking a photo that was quite dark and foreboding and turning it into a happy looking illustration. I'm slowly getting my head around how to make my work look like illustration instead of "fine art". This is watercolour and colour pencil.
I painted the background in watercolour. The self portrait was a separate pencil sketch. After a bit of mucking around with them both on my phone, I came up with this.
In case you're wondering, I have septum piercings, which is what the protruding part is, near my nose.