Monday's Drawing Critiques

Yesterday was our first day back in class from spring break, and it was also critique day in my drawing class. We had had four weeks to create a four foot by three foot self portrait in any color scheme that wasn't black and white. And during the critique some interesting questions were posed, what necessarily makes something a self-portrait? Does it have to be just a drawing of your face? does it need to include your entire face? Should it depict your personality, or what you want to aspire to be? Although all the portraits were of our faces, they were quite different. One girls depicted her emotions and feelings of when she'd be overwhelmed by her work, and another person just had them self as a floating head over the grand canyon. The most interesting to me was a portrait where the face looked almost airbrushed because her features were so smooth and her make up and hair was perfect. It also slimmed her down a bit too. It was discovered during the critique that this was the ideal version of herself. After the critique it made me wonder what exactly a self portrait was and what it really depicts.