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

Self Portrait Week 5

I got a head start on this week.

This time I tried drawing upside down. It was a weird feeling and while it didn't take me that long, it felt like my hardest one to draw, to date. I felt like something in my mind was fighting or objecting while I drew.

Ultimately, this is my favorite one so far.

Self Portrait Week 4

This week I ran into a little snag.

I was practicing facial proportions after posting my last Self Portrait of the Week (SPotW) and when it came to drawing time on the weekend when I have time...my mind wanted to write. I couldn't help it. I spent several hours writing a blog post, editing it, and then leaving it alone for a couple of hours while I did some errands.

When I came back, I found the writing odd, uneven, and confused. It was like my writing part and my drawing part where trying to work together and I think near the end of the blogpost that has been published, everything came together into a nice review of the new Amazon Prime TV Series, The Man in the High Castle. But it would take a lot of reworking.

So here is what I have come up with for this week:

Self Portrait a Week: Week 3

This week I was a bit ambitious and tried to sketch an picture where I am with another person. This is from a vacation Patti and I took last year, this is at Hot Springs Arkansas on February 28, 2014:

In this case I think I did better at shading. Getting Patti close to recognizable was a task because she isn't fully in the frame and getting anything close to her nose was a huge task. I think I'm a long way off of creating recognizable portraits for the most part. Here is the source I used to sketch:

I can see a lot of room for improvement in getting proportions right too.

When I haven't been attempting self-portrait I have been practicing shading. I tried just trying to make a circle look like a sphere, I tried an apple and I think I learned the most working on sketching this stone skull:

The thing I learned most from working with the skull was how to dissect the skull into two different shapes and then bring the depth out by shading and adding additional lines. But I still have a long way to go.

Li'l Tiger Portrait

I've been bitten by the drawing bug! I think about drawing all day and when I see people's faces or reflections or just about anything I think about how I might go about trying to sketch it.

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of my cat, Li'l Tiger's, death so I thought I would try to draw her.

And here is the picture I based the drawing on which I posted her last year too:

Self Portrait Number 2

Here are the rules I am drawing by:

1) the end goal is 52 self-portraits by 1/31/2015
2) If I do three in a week, Great!
3) If  I don't do any in a week, maybe I was busy.
4) This is not a challenge
5) Nothing is perfect, if I don't like an attempt, too bad for me, it still counts toward the 52.

I think that's it.  Here's the self-portrait for the second week of January, 2015:

This one is take from a picture when Patti and I were on vacation last March. The photo is from March 12, 2014 and we are staying in a condo at Sanibel Island in Florida.

I am not as happy with this one as I am with the first one but, hey, it's only the second one. Maybe I try too hard. I have trouble capturing the mouth and the ear and the nose.

I started today by practicing shading, just trying to make a sphere out of s circle and even though I wasn't too happy with my shading, I was eager to jump in and try again.

Then I remember it is only the second week and prior to three days ago I never tried to draw a self portrait ever, so I am good with it.

The One Self Portrait Per Week Show

I have always been a frustrated artist, as I am sure are many of us. And like many of us, I want to be good a drawing but I know that I am not so I never practice!

What!?

No wonder I am a frustrated artist! It is like writing: If you are not writing you are not practicing!

So, yesterday, which in the the nominal time was known as January 6, 2015, I was listening to a new favorite podcast of mine, Your Chillpak Hollywood Hour hosted by TV's One-Third of the Lone Gunmen (among other things), Dean Haglund and filmmaker and actor Phil Leirness.

On this occasion, they were doing a show on their New Years Intentions/Resolutions (Ego is Skeleton), which is a show they do every year but this is my first year of listening and Dean mentions an artist who is doing a self-portrait per day and that one of his goals for the year was to do something along those lines, maybe not quite as frequently.

This resonates with me in a way that I cannot explain. It suddenly hits me that I can draw a self-portrait, at least one-per-week and then I will be able to measure any improvement in my drawing by the end of the year!

So here is my first attempt which I just drew tonight:

Which is based on this photograph I took yesterday morning (see above for nominal time date) which I took only because I love how the towel did my hair!

I had the most trouble with the nose but for a first attempt; I am off to the races!

Thank you Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness for your Ego is Skeleton and for your inspiring show!