Two years ago Meg commissioned an artist to draw two portraits of her - but she didn’t give the artist any photos.
Instead she supplied the artist with two descriptions of a woman. One description was written by Meg of herself and the other description was written by her husband ‘as if we were describing me to a police sketch artist’. The artist had no other guidelines, no photos. They hadn't even been told that the descriptions were of the same woman.
The objective was to see if there would be a big difference between the way Meg perceived herself and the way other people see her.
‘We are all our own harshest critic…. Aren't we all curious to see ourselves the way our partners see us’
But when the portraits were delivered - Meg didn’t feel ready to look at them yet. Two years later she has finally decided to look at the portraits.
She sat down with her husband Guy to look at the portraits and the responses were emotional.
You can see the differences in their descriptions in these exerts:
Meg’s Description:
A white pale woman, with pink undertones in her skin. She has a round/oval shaped face with full, chubby cheeks and a small pointed chin. Her skin is starting to show signs of aging. A few wrinkles under her eyes, dark eye circles from tiredness. Two wrinkles in between her eyebrows from frowning and slight wrinkles on either side of her mouth that turn downwards from the weight of her cheeks. Her skin tends to be dry, not oily.
Her forehead is slightly bigger than average, which means she wears a subtle side parting in her hair to try and disguise it. She has a thick wide neck and prominent double chin. Her eyebrows are dark and arched, rounder at the front and thinner at the end giving them a tadpole type shape.
Her eyes are big and round shaped and look ever so slightly too close together due to her face being large. They protrude from the side, giving her a slightly buggy look. But they are warm and friendly when she smiles. People will tell her that her eyes are her best feature. The shape of them is a little downwards at the end and they are a blue grey colour with a darker circle of blue around the iris and lighter in the middle.
Guy’s Description:
The woman has a rounded face with a soft and gentle chin. It doesn't protrude from her face and isn't sharp, but it's defined. Her skin tone is fair and pink, with tones of red flashes on her high cheekbones under her eyes. The eyes are the main aspect of her face that draws your attention. Big, almost circular, bright blue eyes. Piercing blue, the same blue you'd see on a stormy sea afternoon . She has naturally long eyelashes that surround her eyes. Underneath the eyes are some ever so slight wrinkles that you probably wouldn't notice right away.
Her nose is small and cute, straight down the middle, not too wide or too thin and the tip isn't too high or low. On either side of her nose and under her eyes are defined cheek lines that run from the sides of her nostrils to the corners of her mouth when she smiles. A smile pushes up her rounded pinkish cheeks. She has a small mouth but not thin lips, only the top lip is slightly thinner than the bottom. They're both full lips that hold your attention and compliment her large smile.
