Valazquez self portrait

I am writing this initially just with my own thoughts and will actually read more about this piece later in order to get a better understanding. I guess what stands out most is how bored he seems. Even standing before what appears to be a large canvas he seems disinterested in everything else going on around him. He is looking straight at the viewer (at least as best I can tell given the quality of the picture) as if to say, "yeah I'm here to". I am curious why he chose to include himself in this particular painting, was he especially close with the family, and what is he painting in the painting? Is it a depiction of him creating the very thing we are looking at? I will post a follow up after doing a bit of reading on this.

Awesome!!

Random Find

Ori Gersht: Check him out! My husband saw an article on this artist on the Daily Beast last week and his work in film and photo really helped me shed some light on the issue of prints being so easy to reproduce, therefore artistic work loosing some of it's "aura".