Self Portrait, 13th December 2005
14th December 2005
Ninth in the series - a self portrait a day until Christmas.
This was so very nearly a good drawing.
Before this drawing, I did a sketch based on the correct proportions of a head, a drawing that artists have done for many hundreds of years. Coming across these proportions has been something of a minor breakthrough, I must admit. It's strange to think that with all the time I've spent in art education I've never learned this before. I was aware of (but had forgotten about) the eye-line bisecting the skull, but all the other measurements and proportions are new to me.
Looking back over the last eight drawings now, places where I've got the proportions wrong fairly scream at me, and I can see exactly what I should have done differently to get a better likeness.
Not that that helped me much when I did this portrait yesterday. Well, maybe that's not entirely fair, some of it I think I've got bang on - from the nose down is good, and looks like me, also the forehead. The nose is close, but a bit too bulbous. What really spoils it though is the right eye (as you look at the drawing). It's either too small or too far from the nose or both, I suspect both.
If it weren't for that right eye this would have been a pretty good likeness. And there I was only yesterday saying how I was going to have to be more careful with eye widths.
This drawing was approached pretty methodically. About 30 minutes to an hour of laying out and measuring first, then the major tone blocks, which went in very quick. After that I started to work on the features more, trying to see smaller shapes and balance tones.
I soon came up against a problem I always have with normal graphite pencil - I need to go darker and the pencil won't do it, the more I work the worse it gets, and I get that shiny pencil look. Charcoal is the opposite, almost like paint. You can push it about and change whole areas at the drop of a hat, go as dark as you like, but it's not so conducive to detail. I think today I'm going to try a conte portrait, see if I get the best of both worlds.
It's disappointing to have got that eye wrong having spent so long (about three hours) on this drawing, but I'm also happy with the progression I've made. I know I'm close now to getting everything in proportion and getting a good likeness, and I can see the quality of my marks improving too, getting some of their old strength back on good days. I really didn't expect it to be this difficult to turn out a good self portrait. Simply knowing about general proportions and trying to see properly is not enough by itself.
The missing link of course, is just practice. Today's drawing will be the tenth and half way through the project. Although I don't think I've done any good drawings yet, I'm still happy at this stage because I can see a progression. The drawings are taking me longer and longer to do, but that's no bad thing. I'm pretty sure that at some point in the future I'll do one and be able to sit back and say, 'yes, that's it, everything's in the right place'. At that point I'll start thinking more about improving the quality of the drawing itself.
Although this project has kept me from painting, I'm not concerned because I think what I'm learning now will improve my painting too when I get back to it. Apart from anything else, I'm really enjoying myself.