So this session was an attempt to paint and draw myself without my glasses, I am pretty short-sighted but find drawing my glasses a pain, they warp how the eyes are seen and those little side bits (the reflections, the odd magnification/lens distortion) do my head in. Self portraits are weird, I feel very self conscious (#selfie) but at 3am in the morning I’m the most available model I know! I could write loads here on the psychology and the self-reflection in the history of artists doing self-portraits but hey, you can google it. Or guess, it’s not that deep.
What I do reflect deeply on (ho ho) is how self-portraits happened before the silvered mirror? Water in a metal bowl? Convenient pond? Those polished metal mirrors aren’t that good…
I digress…anyway I really don’t like my face, especially my glasses (but dislike the idea of contacts or laser surgery even more). So I decided after an initial unsuccessful attempt to draw myself like last time, to experiment and see what I could do without them.
What I found interesting is how it changed my approach to detail. A bit like squinting to see tone, I was far better on colour and tonality and less hung up on detail because I simply could not see it!
The piece at the top is a rare watercolour ‘freestyle’ that works – looks like I have my eyes closed in fact – called Signs of Dawn (Schulze). I rarely name or sign my work, danger of pretension, but these titles were the songs I was listening to when I did them, so seemed appropriate. Music plays a big part of my creative process, I’m always listening to something and it does influence the work. Faster music gets more kinetic, dynamic, expressive mark-making and painting, slower music more reflective and gentle. It’s a sort of artistic dance.
Not listened to Klaus Schulze’s Signs of Dawn before, but it’s kosmiche electronica fitted really well as an artistic soundtrack. Might play it on the podcast but at over 13 minutes it’s a bit of a beast.
Then we have ‘Winter Kills’ (yes one of my favourite Yazoo tracks, I was listening to a remix by Electronic Periodic I played on the podcast of the same name) which I thought I had screwed up the tonality but forgot how much the watercolours dry lighter, so it’s not too bad. As before I love the colours you can use to suggest a grey/white beard. There really are sort of blues, greens and browns in there…and probably a few nesting birds, a few meals and lost tourists!
If it looks pissed off or rather intense, that’s intentional. I don’t do smiling much.
The third – although second in order of creation is Wise Ol’ Man (Fall). I do not think I am a wise old man, less of the old actually – but the song by The Fall came on randomly and seemed to fit the image. I look blind here, which is appropriate for the name and experiment, and seems to be a theme in several of the pictures. Maybe it’s my subconscious telling me I need new glasses? In fact I do…
Not shown is an attempt at freestyling the watercolour sticks…that can be like the watercolour very variable. I want to get away from the all-encompassing line but it’s risky without any reference point since the sticks aren’t really crayons in that sense, they aren’t so easy to draw with. But I think something like 5 self-portraits in 3 hours isn’t bad going.
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