Portraiture and Colour – two difficult concepts!

Last week we did portraiture…our own.  That was way more difficult than you can image.  Look at yourself in a mirror and draw what you see.

I sent the final product to my friend Wendie and my daughter Olivia and said “what do you think”.  I got responses like – it’s too wide across the cheeks, the chin is too narrow, there’s something not quite right but I’m not sure what it is and my favourite – it looks too young!

During the week, I tried again, added lots more lines/wrinkles, made it less wide across the cheeks but it still isn’t right.  Then I discovered why Olivia said “there’s something not quite right but I’m not sure what it is” when I stood in front of a mirror and held the two sketches up and realized …duh…the sketches are what I see in a mirror, not what Olivia sees when she looks at me.  So, I’ve taken some pictures of myself and will try and do another sketch from them.  Here are the original two.  I will add a third when I get around to it.

This week:  Colour!  Sounds like fun, right?  Conté and different types of pastels; sheesh, is it messy and dusty and smudgy and…frustrating!  I’m actually kind of glad that’s over and now Olivia can have back the conté she lent me back at the beginning…not likely to play with that again.  Bring on paint!