Tag: self-portrait

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Drawing Faces Ink and watercolor wash Life in general Painting People Photos Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Sketching Myself Out of a Bad Place

Back to Real Me, ink and watercolor
Back to Real Me (if a bit squinty), ink and watercolor

Yesterday I was having a hard time with some issues and by the evening was full of negativity. I watched a little TV and tried to think of a way fix my rotten mood. Nothing sounded good until I had the idea to play dress up, take some photos and sketch myself as someone else, someone not in a bad mood.

Even though it was 9:00 at night, I put on a ton of makeup (which I rarely ever wear) including teal eye liner, blue eye shadow, maroon lipstick and as much blush as possible. I tied a turquoise bandana around my messy hair, put a pretty blouse over my ratty t-shirt and set my camera to shoot repeatedly. I posed the way I’d heard Usher on American Idol telling contestants to look through the camera as if they were connecting directly with their audience at home.

I set it to shoot again and pretended like I was on America’s Next Top Model, posing for a fancy photographer. Then I put the images up on the computer screen and sketched one from the screen and one from a mirror. Despite looking pleasant in the photos, my sketches looked as tortured and sad as I was feeling.

Tortured sketch (in mirror), Pretending sweetness (from photo)
Tortured sketch (in mirror), Pretending sweetness (from photo)

Tonight, in a better mood, I did these two, the one on the right drawn with a brush. I still wasn’t satisfied that I’d done the final self portrait to end the book.

Starting to feel better sketches (from photo)
Starting to feel better sketches (from photo)

Finally, I put my hair in a ponytail and sketched myself again in a mirror (the sketch at the top of the post) which I like and now officially ends the previous journal.

And here’s one of the photos I used for the sketches.

Pretending to be cheery
Pretending to be cheery

Last night I was pretending to be cheery and now tonight I am. Was it the pretending that changed my mood or is it the weekend?

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Portrait Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Last Pages of the Old Sketchbook

Last page self portrait. Ink & watercolor
Last page self portrait. Ink & watercolor, drawn from life

In Louise Stanley‘s “Rules for Keeping a Sketchbook,” her rule number two  is “Start on the third page to get your courage up.” Number three is “Go back to the first page and do a self-portrait when you’ve got the nerve.” At her exhibit it was great seeing some of her (often comical) self-portraits from journals spanning decades.

For my own journals, I preferred the idea of making the last page a self-portrait instead. That way it still creates  a record of the YOU that put all that stuff in the journal, but it’s not there staring back at you every time you open the book. So this is my self-portrait on the last page of the Fabriano Venezia sketchbook.

BART Riders, ink and watercolor
BART Riders, ink and watercolor

And this is the second to last page. Just a couple of subway riders with a bit of watercolor added later. I’m about a quarter of the way into the new journal I bound myself and am really loving it. My next posts will be from that journal.

And now it’s Friday night and what has felt like a very long, exhausting work week is finally over and I get to transition back to my art life. But that will be tomorrow. Tonight I’m just interested in a good night’s sleep.

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Animals Cartoon art Drawing Gouache Illustration Ink and watercolor wash International Fake Journal Month Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Sketchbook Pages

Thank You Roz & Boris the Dragonly Critic

Thank You Roz! (Gouache & Ink)
Thank You Roz! (Gouache & Ink)

As second place winner in the International Fake Journal Month contest, I won this amazing t-shirt from Roz Stendahl, the inventor of IFJM. I tried to sketch myself sketching myself myself wearing it. I didn’t do the t-shirt (or myself) justice, but I do like the way the bird and I both seem to have the same expression! THANK YOU ROZ! I love it! (My IFJM posts are here and here.)

I’ve been having one of those crises of artistic self-confidence in my drawing the past couple weeks. I’m not sure if the drawing difficulties are real or I’ve just somehow allowed that nasty internal critic out of his cage and back on my shoulder.

Boris the Dragonly Critic, ink & watercolor
Boris the Dragonly Critic, ink & watercolor

I know the cure though: put him back in his cage and do a whole bunch of drawing until he is so bored he falls asleep for a nice long summer nap. And I’ll start by drawing HIM!  Here he is now, safely back in his cage and starting to get very sleepy….

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Drawing Faces Oil Painting Other Art Blogs I Read Painting People Portrait

Self Portrait in Pigtails

Self portrait in pigtails, 16x12", oil
Self portrait in pigtails, 16x12", Oil on canvas

I met a very quirky 76 year-old woman artist who has made her home, her car and her self into a wonderful, crazy work of art. I’ll share more about her next time, but today wanted to post this self-portrat she inspired.

I’d been feeling discouraged about oil painting after doing a terrible plein air painting on Saturday but meeting that woman on my walk today, I was inspired to braid my hair and decorate myself with make up and do a self portrait in oils.

I started by setting up a mirror but found it awkward to paint while having to keep looking in a mirror to my right and making the same face.  So I took photos, shooting into the mirror, and then displayed the best one on my computer monitor and worked from that. Here’s the photo I used:

Reference photo of me
Reference photo of me

I started by drawing with white pastel pencil on an already toned canvas (actually a reused canvas: the first painting I did when I picked up oils a year or so ago — a portrait of my sister that was so terrible that I scraped it and covered it in a warm brown oil paint to be used again). I like sketching with a pastel pencil because it rubs off easily from a primed canvas and disappears into the oil paint without streaking or smearing.

Pastel drawing on toned canvas
Pastel drawing on toned canvas

Then I photographed the drawing bove and pasted the image as another layer in Photoshop on top of the reference photo, adjusting the new layer to 60% opacity. That allowed me to see where my drawing was off and make the adjustments on my canvas. You can see in the overlay below that I’d missed in many places, despite my attempt at accuracy.

Drawing overlapping photo
Drawing overlapping photo

I’ve learned the hard way that an incorrect drawing just leads to a bad painting.  I could have just enlarged the photo and traced it right onto my canvas, but I love drawing and wanted the challenge of drawing myself somewhat accurately. I think the final painting does look a bit like me and it was definitely fun to do.

I’m going to wear my hair like this to work tomorrow. And I’m not going to give up oils.

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Art theory Faces Life in general Painting People Portrait Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Squinting to See the Light (funny story)

Squinting to see the light

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Watercolor in large Moleskine notebook

Today at work, 10 of us were sitting around the table in the lunchroom eating and chatting. I sat across from our director, facing the picture window and our 27th-story view of Oakland, the San Francisco Bay, Mt. Tamalpais and the huge, cloudy sky. I was thinking about what I learned in my painting class last Sunday about the importance of learning to see color temperatures and value. A good way to do that is to close one eye and squint, which helps to blur the details, so that you can see shapes and values. I decided to practice on a blue house and a large brick building that I could see in the distance. I tried one eye and then the other, curious if it made a difference between my left and right eyes.

Suddenly I realized the conversation had stopped, our director was asking me if I was OK, and everyone was staring at me. I burst out laughing realizing that I was sitting there making weird squinty faces and they were all thinking I had an excruciating headache or had suddenly gone mad. I started trying to explain what I was doing and they looked at me perplexed. They finally realized it was an “art thing” and went back to chatting about work and TV shows and travel.

When I got home tonight, I looked in the mirror to see just how funny I looked and had to do this quickie self-portrait in my sketchbook. Amazingly it actually looks like me!