• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Self-Portrait Writing Prompts

A portrait in words: what the mirror shows, what your hands do, five objects, and you at six and sixty.

Self-Portrait Writing Prompts

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  1. Write a self-portrait of your hands: the knuckles, the nails, the ink on one finger and how it got there.Angle: a hand is as much yours as a face, and easier to look at.
  2. Write a museum label for each of five objects from your life, as if a self-portrait in a glass case had your name over the door.First line: Pencil, chewed. In daily use. On loan from the artist.
  3. Write a self-portrait as a pet would give it: by smell, by footsteps, by the time the food arrives.First line: The tall one who drops crusts is home.

Next step Draw the self-portrait tooWrite about who you are

All 60 prompts

What the mirror shows 12

  • Describe your own smile from the outside for a self-portrait: which side starts it, and what your eyes do next. First line: The left corner goes first and the rest catches up.
  • In a mirror your left side is on the right. Write a self-portrait of that reversed person and one thing they do differently. Angle: which hand they write with, which way their hair falls.
  • Look in a mirror for one whole minute, then write a self-portrait of only what you saw, starting at the top of your head. Angle: no opinions. Write a list a stranger could draw from.
  • Make three faces in the mirror: surprised, bored, trying not to laugh. Write a self-portrait of the one that is most like you. Angle: say what gives it away as yours.
  • Pose for the mirror, then stop posing. Write a self-portrait of the face that shows up in between. Angle: it lasts about a second. Describe it before it fixes itself.
  • Write a self-portrait from the dark window of a bus at night: how much of your face the glass shows, and what shines through it. Angle: streetlights pass through your forehead. Use them.
  • Write a self-portrait made of colors: every color you can find in your eyes, hair and skin, named as exactly as paint. Angle: not brown but tea, bark or toast. Not blue but a rainy window.
  • Write a self-portrait of what you are wearing today, and say why each thing was chosen or was only on top of the pile. Angle: begin with the shoes.
  • Write a self-portrait of your eyes only: their color, their shape, and what they do when you are really listening. Angle: then what they do when you are pretending to listen.
  • Write a self-portrait of your face when it is doing nothing at all. Angle: where the eyebrows sit, which way the mouth leans when it rests.
  • Write a self-portrait of your hair on an ordinary morning, as if it had plans of its own. First line: The back has decided to go east today.
  • Write your self-portrait as instructions for an artist who will never see you. First line: Begin with an oval, a little wider at the top than you think.

My hands and what they do 12

  • For a self-portrait, write about the one thing your hands know how to do without you: tie, type, shuffle, braid or catch. Angle: try to explain it in steps, and notice where the words run out.
  • Hold your hand up against the hand of someone older in your family, palm to palm, and write a portrait of both. Angle: whose fingers are longer, whose palm is rougher, whose is warmer.
  • If your hands kept a diary, what would it say about you? Write one week of it as a self-portrait. First line: Monday. Forty minutes holding a pencil and nothing to show for it.
  • List ten things your hands did today, in order, and write the self-portrait they add up to. First line: Turned off an alarm. Found a sock. Held a spoon too long.
  • Trace around your hand. Inside each finger write one thing that hand is good at, then turn the five into a self-portrait. Angle: the thumb gets the thing you are proudest of.
  • Write a self-portrait from the things your hands hold most days: a pencil, a ball, a spoon, a leash, a set of keys. Angle: three objects are enough. Say how each one is held.
  • Write a self-portrait of what your hands are doing right now while the rest of you thinks. Angle: do not move them first. Look, then write.
  • Write a self-portrait of your hands learning something they still get wrong. First line: The left hand knows the chord. The right hand is guessing.
  • Write a self-portrait of your hands: the knuckles, the nails, the ink on one finger and how it got there. Angle: a hand is as much yours as a face, and easier to look at.
  • Write about something your hands made that still exists, as a self-portrait of the person who made it. Angle: where it is kept now, and what is a little crooked about it.
  • Write three short self-portraits of your hands: at work, at rest and at play. Angle: one sentence each, and the same two hands in all three.
  • Write two self-portraits of your hands: when you are nervous, and when you are sure. Angle: pockets, sleeves, a pencil turning, or flat and still on the table.

A portrait in five objects 12

  • Choose five objects for a self-portrait, then swap one for an object you would rather nobody saw. Write why it belongs. Angle: an old toy, a list, a bad drawing you kept.
  • Choose five objects from your room that could stand in for you, and write a self-portrait that names only them. Angle: no adjectives about yourself. Let the objects do it.
  • Find the object you have owned longest and the one you got most recently. Write a self-portrait of the person in between. Angle: what the first one would think of the second.
  • Pick one object for the you of the morning and one for the you of the night, and write a self-portrait with both in it. Angle: an alarm clock and a flashlight, a cereal bowl and a book.
  • Tip your school bag out on the floor and write the self-portrait a detective would make from the pile. First line: The owner walks to school, forgets things and likes mints.
  • Write a museum label for each of five objects from your life, as if a self-portrait in a glass case had your name over the door. First line: Pencil, chewed. In daily use. On loan from the artist.
  • Write a self-portrait as a lunch: five things in the box and what each one says about you. Angle: include the thing you always trade away.
  • Write a self-portrait as a shelf: what stands at the front, what is pushed to the back, what has dust on it. Angle: a shelf has an order. Say who decided it.
  • Write a self-portrait from five things stuck to your wall or to the refrigerator door. Angle: say which one you put up yourself and which one someone else did.
  • Write a self-portrait in five objects: one you made, one you were given, one you found, one you broke, one you would never lend. Angle: the broken one says the most. Give it the last line.
  • Write your self-portrait as a lost-and-found notice for five things you are always losing. First line: Missing: one glove, left. Answers to nothing.
  • Your shoes are by the door. Write a self-portrait of the person who wore them into that shape. Angle: where the heel is worn down, which lace is always loose.

Me at another age 12

  • Describe the you of one year ago by the things that no longer fit: shoes, a chair, a joke. Make it a self-portrait. Angle: say where each one went.
  • Find a photo of yourself as a baby and write a self-portrait of what is already you in it. Angle: a frown, a fist, the way of looking at the camera.
  • If every pencil mark on a door frame could describe the person who stood there, what would each one say? Write the marks as a self-portrait. First line: This one stood on tiptoe. We let it count.
  • Put yourself at six, yourself today and yourself at sixty on one bench, and write the portrait of all three. Angle: who sits in the middle, and whose feet do not reach the ground.
  • The six-year-old you draws a portrait of you as you are today. Write what the drawing gets right. Angle: big hands, a round sun, the dog larger than the house.
  • Write a self-portrait at exactly twice the age you are now: where you are standing and what is in your hands. Angle: do the sum first. Then choose the room.
  • Write a self-portrait from the earliest age you can remember, using only what you truly remember seeing. Angle: a floor, a pair of knees, the underside of a table.
  • Write a self-portrait of yourself at six: how high you came on the door frame, the favorite shirt, the missing tooth. Angle: use a photo if you have one, and say what the photo leaves out.
  • Write a self-portrait of yourself at sixty, looking into the same mirror you use now. Angle: keep one thing exactly as it is today.
  • Write a self-portrait of yourself on your first day of school, from a photo or from the story people tell. Angle: the bag that was too big. What you were holding on to.
  • Write the self-portrait you would want painted when you are very old, and what you would insist on in the background. Angle: a window, an animal, a shelf of something.
  • You are ninety-nine and a child asks what you looked like at the age you are now. Write the answer as a self-portrait. Angle: what you would remember first, and what you would get wrong.

As someone else would describe me 12

  • A bus driver sees you for ten seconds every morning. Write the self-portrait those ten seconds would make. Angle: running or early, hood up or down, the same seat.
  • A much younger child draws you and explains the drawing. Write the explanation as your self-portrait. First line: This is the hair. This is the loud shoes.
  • Ask someone at home what they would draw first if they drew you. Write the self-portrait that starts from that. Angle: glasses, a grin, a book held too close. Begin there and work outward.
  • If your reflection could finally get a word in, how would it describe you? Write that self-portrait. First line: I do everything she does, and I do it backward.
  • Let your backpack describe its owner. Write the self-portrait it would give. Angle: the weight, the zipper you never close, what has lived at the bottom since fall.
  • Write a self-portrait as a grandparent would describe you to a neighbor over the fence. Angle: a little too proud, and one detail slightly wrong.
  • Write a self-portrait as a pet would give it: by smell, by footsteps, by the time the food arrives. First line: The tall one who drops crusts is home.
  • Write a self-portrait as a teammate or a lab partner would: what you are like to work beside. Angle: what you do first, and what you leave for others.
  • Write a self-portrait as the person who cuts your hair would: from above, in a mirror, a few times a year. Angle: what they notice has changed since the last visit.
  • Write a self-portrait as told by the person who sits behind you and knows only the back of your head. Angle: the collar, the way you lean, what you do when you are stuck.
  • Write your self-portrait in the voice of your best friend introducing you to someone new. Angle: friends start with a story and never with your height.
  • You handed in a lost wallet, and the owner describes you to a friend that evening. Write that description as a self-portrait. Angle: what a grateful stranger sees in half a minute.

How it works

Each self-portrait writing prompt here asks for a portrait in words: your face at rest, your hands, five things from your room. Any of them can sit under a drawn self-portrait, on the same sheet.

Read the full guide

Start with what can be seen

The mirror prompts ask for looking before thinking: one whole minute at the glass, then a list a stranger could draw from. Colors are named as exactly as paint, so not brown but tea, bark or toast. No prompt asks whether you like what you see.

Beyond the mirror

Four of the five groups start somewhere else: with your hands, with five objects on a shelf, with the you of six or of sixty, or with what a pet, a bus driver or the person who cuts your hair would say about you.

  • Describe, do not rate. Curly, freckled and left-handed are things a reader can see.
  • Write it on the day you draw it. Where the two portraits disagree is the interesting part.

Questions and answers

What is a self-portrait in writing?

A description of yourself made the way a painter makes one: by looking. It can show a face, and it can just as well show hands, clothes, a room or five objects, in your own voice or in someone else's.

What is a good self-portrait writing prompt?

Try your hands. List ten things they did today, in order, and write the self-portrait they add up to. Or write your hair on an ordinary morning, as if it had plans of its own.

Can these go with a drawn self-portrait?

Yes. Trace around your hand and write inside each finger, write a museum label for each of five objects you have drawn, or set the instructions for an artist who will never see you beside the drawing itself.

How do I write about myself at another age?

Pick an exact age and one place. At six: how high you came on the door frame, the favorite shirt, the missing tooth. At sixty: the same mirror you use now, with one thing kept exactly as it is today.

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