12/9/15 Kuretake No. 30 brush pen |
Four years ago when I first started sketching, I gave myself
an exercise to draw 100 self-portraits.
It was torturous at times, but once I got into it, I actually started to enjoy
the exercise and process. One goal was to eventually make one that resembled
myself enough that if I used it as a Facebook profile image, my friends would
recognize me.
Making a portrait recognizable, however, shouldn’t be the
only goal. Another should be to capture a person’s essence, some
difficult-to-describe quality that makes the person who they are. Some might
call it attitude or maybe spirit.
The wet, blustery days of winter (which are fully upon is in
these parts) are the only times I have the patience and tolerance to stare at
my own face in a mirror for the purpose of drawing it. This time of year is
also when I tend to become more reflective or introspective anyway, so
self-portraits fit my general mood. I’m not committing to making a hundred, but I’ve pulled out my mirror again, and I’ll
occasionally post my efforts here. This time I’m going for capturing the
essence of myself in addition to (I hope) some resemblance!
By the way, today’s selfie was done with one of many brush
pens I bought in Japan – the Kuretake double-sided pen, No. 30 (it’s available at JetPens). I admit I
went a little hog-wild shopping for brush pens because there was such a great selection
(and so inexpensive compared to buying the same pens here)! Most contain
water-soluble ink (the only one I could find that is supposed to be waterproof requires
a long wait time before it stops smearing – I learned the hard way), which
limits their use with watercolor, but I also really enjoy taking advantage of water-solubility
for shading. These new brush pens will make selfie season more fun.
I like how you got a good likeness of yourself with just a few lines. Good job on this. You must have been happy as a clam shopping in the art stores in Japan.
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