Graphite & Willow Charcoal
Then there are those rare times when something unexpected happens before your eyes, and "people watching" pulls you out of that observant role into response. Recently, just as I had almost finished preparing this post - I came upon a scene that I later had to make note of in my Moleskine.
Screaming in the middle of the street an older man, completely mad with rage, paced. More like a wild animal than a man, he repeatedly lunged with fists raised at a group of women huddled on the footpath, and then, heaving, would pace back out into the street. I heard his shouting well before I saw him; it ricocheted off the buildings. It took me a while to actually realise what I was witnessing, but once I did it was obvious and unforgettable. A woman with a baby huddled, shaken and distraught against a wall. My blood boiled as I realised this was a domestic violence episode which had spilled out on to the street. The man rushed towards the infant fist raised and the group yelled and assembled together between them. It's hard to explain what it was like to witness that - it felt odd because all around people went about their business, buying their groceries, chatting on their phone, ignoring it. The façade had cracked in this little part of the world; the messiness, the brokenness was laid bare and most people walked on. It was painful to see, but amidst all that was a fierceness that rivalled the man's rage - a group of people, all women, complete strangers, all different ages and backgrounds had stopped, come together and encircled the woman and baby, and arms outstretched they braced themselves against the man until the police arrived. Even though it was horrible to see, and I still worry for that woman, it was inspiring and heartening to see the strength and courage of the women who banded together. When I arrived home and processed what had happened a line came to mind: "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main..." - John Donne Stream of consciousness or free writing is a technique I picked up from an English teacher in high school, as a way of tackling writer's block. If you are not familiar, it is simply writing words; whatever comes to mind, no matter how nonsensical - no editing, no inhibiting. The result was often complete and utter nonsense, but occasionally an intriguing and, granted very odd, sentence would appear. Whether I then worked off that sentence or not, this exercise was really useful in opening me up or if nothing else diminished that critical head space that often takes hold when I am stuck.
I was not stuck for ideas or hitting a wall, but I decided to put this same idea to use with my drawing - just follow the strange roads and connections my mind makes. The above was the result. While portraiture is my main obsession, self-portraiture has been a challenge for me in the past. Many pieces have been abandoned in frustration, and yet I keep trying to attempt it. This challenge is why I simultaneously love and hate self-portraiture. Recently I decided to approach it differently; dedicate some time to this and be intentional in the actual process of drawing a portrait.
The struggles I have had with self-portraiture are these... Familiarity: I have found portraying people I am close to harder than those I am not. I am able to do it but it just takes a lot more reworking and a few drafts to get it to a point where I am satisfied with it. I am not entirely sure why this is, but I believe this is part of the challenge I have with drawing myself. It's harder to be objective and just draw what I see when I know the details already - I end up drawing partially from memory and partially from the picture I am working off, often resulting in a confusing expression. Lesson learnt: Draw what I see rather than what I know. Imperfections: Realism and detail are part of what motivates me to draw, and so I love drawing faces that have something different about them or unique to that person, like a crooked tooth or a scar. But when drawing myself my first inclination was to filter. I had to consciously resist the urge to skim over or adjust the imperfections I saw. Lesson learnt: A "cookie-cutter" face is not reality, and therefore in my mind not beautiful. But for the first time, despite encountering all those same things listed above, I finished a self-portrait and wondered why this time was different. Aside from the angle being a bit off this piece turned out well, and this is why I think it did. My focus became not about just portraying my physical features, but about how I was feeling at the time. Frida Kahlo (one of my all time favourite artists) is quoted to have said, "I paint self-portraits because... I am the person I know best." A vast majority of her work was self-portraiture, and some might call this narcissism, but her paintings were not typically flattering in any sense, but actually confronting*. Kahlo used self-portraiture to express her inward struggles and how she experienced the world. I think this is why I was more successful this time round - my focus was not on making it look exactly, to the very last eyelash, like me, but focusing on capturing a sense of how I was feeling in that moment. All in all I came away from my self-portraits with a sense of progress not just creatively, but personally... Self-Evaluation: Artistically it enabled me to really break down each stage of my drawing and just enjoy each part. Personally it became almost a visual diary entry, in the sense that each piece lived with me for few days and so while it may have begun in a certain mood it was interesting to find when I was done that it too had shifted, as my moods did, to resemble something different. Embrace: This became a great exercise because the longer I worked on each drawing the more I disconnected from my physical appearance, and by the end I was content with it. It became a rather freeing exercise - staring down the insecurities and portraying myself honestly. With all the filters and edits you can do to photos now I feel like one of art's many roles is to take us back to reality. Art in general is a way of understanding ones self and the world. But I now feel Self-Portraiture is a means of understanding ones self in a much more tangible way. In the sense of visually, actively placing yourself there - not just the spectator but actually apart of things. Processing and seeing things outwardly what you would only experience inwardly. *See: Memory (The Heart), 1937 and The Two Fridas, 1939 Welcome to my blog!
Music has often played a significant role in my art - I sometimes seek out particular songs to listen to while I work that either address the same theme I have in mind, or manifest a feeling I am going for. In this way it has been very much a tool to help me better explore and establish an idea. But most of the time I use music to clear my mind so I can just be with the page and my pencil. So this seems a fitting first post, to share my go-to playlist when I need to tune out and focus on the blank page before me. The compilation of songs I chose are either instrumental or those which revolve more around the instruments than lyrics. The playlist begins with instrumentals or songs with very few lyrics, and as the playlist goes on, and as my focus deepens, it gradually builds up to songs with more prominent lyrics. I find this collection of songs particularly helpful when I do not have a clear idea for a piece; it breaks down that initial wall or "artist's block". Which is especially helpful when trying to draw daily - because most of the time I am not swept along by some great whirlwind of inspiration, majority of the time it takes perseverance to stop over-thinking it and just do. Song Title // Artist // Album Name 1) 'Alone In Kyoto' // Air // Talkie Walkie 2) 'Glósóli' // Sigur Rós // Takk 3) 'Intro' // The XX // XX 4) 'Instrumental' // The Microphones // The Glow, Pt. 2 5) 'Le femme d'argent' // Air // Moon Safari 6) 'Intro' // Alt-J // An Awesome Wave 7) 'Kid A' // Radiohead // Kid A 8) 'Exchange' // Massive Attack // Mezzanine 9) 'Interlude' // Cypress Hill // Black Sunday 10) 'Home (Instrumental)' // Freddie Gibbs & Madlib // Knicks Remix EP 11) 'Feel It All Around' // Washed Out // Life Of Leisure EP 12) 'Let's Be Still'' // Yo La Tengo // Summer Sun 13) 'Leaving Nara' // Alt-J // All This Is Yours 14) 'All Is Full Of Love' // Björk // Homogenic 15) 'All Alright' // Sigur Rós // Með Suð i eyrum við spilum endalaust 16) 'Angels' // Wax Poetic Ft. Norah Jones // Nublu Sessions 17) 'Destiny' // Zero 7 // Simple Things 18) 'Sparks' // Röyksopp // Melody A.M. 19) 'Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)' // Sufjan Stevens // Greetings From Michigan - The Great Lake State 20)'Burn That Broken Bed' // Calexico & Iron And Wine // In The Reins EP |
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October 2015
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