Interlude: Between Self-portraits

Teaching myself to draw is one of the most rewarding things I have done in a very long time.

After my last self-portrait, which is available as the previous post on this blog. I felt I wanted to draw something else. Really, I wanted to draw a flower but I didn't feel comfortable with my level of skill in making a flower "pop" from graphite and paper, so I found this photograph from Olbrich Gardens with some flowers in it:

Even though I am not happy with how this eventually turned out, it was fun to attempt and more importantly, I learned a very important lesson.  If you see the subject's shoulder is exagerated. This is because at first the face was too wide so I made it a little narrower but I didn't alter the body which was was already drawn.  Again, like in my last self-portrait, number 5, I drew this and the remaining images upside down and I didn't really noticed this distortion until I turned the picture right-side up.  But the idea that I could erase a part of the face I had already drawn so much around was a revelation to me

Here is the photo:

Here is a second drawing I did. I found this one very interesting because of the light play. Also, I did not quite know what to do with the arms since they are cut off, that has been an issue in other drawings too where only a portion of something being drawn appears in the photo. The difficulty is I am not focused on creativity at this point but working on getting a likeness and yet sometimes.

Also the shading was interesting. I think I went a little overboard with the darkness for the shading but at the same time, I discovered I had a tool that lets me blend the graphite. It is like a little white pencil and I am sure it has a name but I do not know what is and, I obviously haven't mastered its use at this point. I find the likeness I achieved in both these instances interesting and yet still wanting.

And yet, I am starting to imagine being creative though no definite vision has yet presented itself.a

Finally, and perhaps because of my thoughts of eventual creativity, I was inspired to recreated somebody else's creativity. I recently bought this book, AMERICAN GROTESQUE The Life and Art of William Mortensen as a present for a friend and while I haven't given the book over yet, I used  the cover as an inspiration to draw a more complex drawing.

I used the actual book itself and it was a little dark where I was working so it was very hard for me to determine some of the detail but overall, I am quite pleased with how my reproduction turned out.  It is really the first time I have attempted a full body drawing and here there are two full bodies and they are even intertwined to an extent.

You can get American Grotesque here at Feral House and other places where fine art books are sold, I am sure