Sunday, January 06, 2013

Mirrorless Self-Portrait Series, Sketch #1 con't...



Where this Mirrorless Self-Portrait is now. It is better to take a photograph in daylight for clarity of focus and the colours, and this is with daylight bulbs. I think it's coming along... that copper leaf is very hard to work with, but makes nice effects.

Mirrorless Self-Portrait Series, sketch 1c, 28.5cm x 42cm, 11 1/4" x 16 1/2", graphite, watercolour pencils, Cretacolor aquastics, copper leaf in a Moleskine A3 Sketchbook.



This one was taken with more sunlight than the first one. It is hard to photograph copper leaf! I'm thinking some copper grasses lower left.

A dear friend thought I made myself look younger, or at least remarked that this is how we appear in our memory of our physical self. I need to say I am not a camera; I cannot reproduce what my mind's eye 'sees'; I struggle to draw something I can live with, that's all. So of course I went back and tried to age the face, but still with the constraint of not looking in a mirror. And actually, I do recognize myself in this image, even if it's not 'perfect.' There's definitely something of the feeling of what I see when I look into a mirror, the sadness in the eyes, and an intensity.

To find out more about this series and the particular constraints I have set myself, read the first post.

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 brendaclews.com

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