October 9, 2021
I want to try all of the different things. I haven’t done much in the way of people pictures, so portraits seemed like a cool idea. A self-portrait was a first step, since all I needed was a mirror and the sketchbook. I tried a pencil selfie, and in a oversharing judgement lapse, put it up. It was so ugly it was the first picture I have taken down since I started this thing on Instagram. Not everyone wants to see this old-ass face unless I can show a little dignity. So I did another one, with the idea I would make it look nice enough to use as a profile pic. I used charcoal so I could shade it, and made it look like me without looking like a bag lady. Even though, in real life, I look like a bag lady, kind of.
I also put aside the mirror and resorted to a grid to set up the picture. That entailed taking a non-awful selfie with my phone camera, processing the photo into a high contrast black and white pic, then printing it on our old laserjet printer. I used a grid to transfer it to the sketchbook and kept all the proportions correct. That feels like cheating, but I’m tired of all the lines being off, and you can’t make mistakes with faces. Rocks, clouds and trees can be slapped in wherever, but you can’t move eyes and noses much without making it look weird. Faces are unforgiving.
I drew my face, and it didn’t look too bad, so I drew Jake too. He’s due for a painting. He is endlessly patient, and also looks good in photos—unlike me. Adventures in portraiture went okay, after the first hiccup. No, I’m not posting it again. Bleah.
Newbluemoon Arts 