365 Self Portraits (Project)

I love art. But, as with all things I enjoy, there are aspects I find myself easily excelling at - and there are aspects with which I struggle.

And I struggle with self portraits. To be frank, I'm really quite terrible at them.

"People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself, either."
-Vincent Van Gogh

To my credit, a  self portrait is considered one of the more challenging things an artist (even photographers!) can undertake. To truly be a good artist you must learn to let the object teach you the context in which it should be captured. You must learn not to cast context out around you that will skew what you see (as a painter or drawer, if you wish your work to be objective and true to life). I do my best to be an observer, nothing more - and usually I am able to strip away the layers of what I see down to the visual core.

But I can't seem to see myself clearly.

Throughout history, the majority of artists who have created self portraits have relied on a mirror as a reference - sketching form from their inconsitent (but engaged) reflection. This adds an additional layer of difficulty to the challenge of accuracy. It can be hard enough to get a model to sit still when that's all they are focusing on, try getting a model to sit still who is also the artist!

I recently read Jane Eyre and was reminded of my inability at self portraitature. The main character, Jane, was able to artistically replicate her features easily using a mirror (as she was doing so to exhibit her plainness, perhaps she also wasn't unbiased enough to have created anything exact - but that's besides the point). Many artists I admire have also created self-portraits using the mirror method - Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Albrecht Durer, not to mention all of the classical masters.

So I decided it was time for me to stop shying away from this area of my art that could obviously be strengthened. Acknowledging repeition as the best teacher, I decided to undertake a unique project guaranteed to help me improve.

I have committed to draw a self portrait of myself from a mirror every day for a year.



These self portraits will be small - a little larger than a regular square sticky note (in fact, some may be on sticky notes - I'm not so prepared that I won't have to improvise at times for materials). They will be rough sketches, each one only requiring about 15 minutes to complete. Most of them will probably be ugly, since I'm really not skilled at rendering my own likeness. At all. But when all is said and done, I will have a very interesting series of autobiographical images.

"I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you."
-Frida Kahlo

Although I cringe to do so, I will scan and share each set of 7 (each week's worth) self portraits. Hopefully within a couple of months we'll see some improvement.

~md

PROJECT ARCHIVES:

WEEK ONE - start date 5/17/13
WEEK TWO
WEEK THREE
WEEK FOUR
WEEK FIVE
WEEK SIX
WEEK SEVEN
WEEK EIGHT
WEEK NINE
WEEK TEN
WEEK ELEVEN
WEEK TWELVE
WEEK THIRTEEN
WEEK FOURTEEN
WEEK FIFTEEN
WEEK SIXTEEN
WEEK SEVENTEEN
WEEK EIGHTEEN
WEEK NINETEEN
WEEK TWENTY
WEEK TWENTY-ONE
WEEK TWENTY-TWO
WEEK TWENTY-THREE
WEEK TWENTY-FOUR
WEEK TWENTY-FIVE
WEEK TWENTY-SIX - halfway!
WEEK TWENTY-SEVEN
WEEK TWENTY-EIGHT
WEEK TWENTY-NINE
WEEK THIRTY
WEEK THIRTY-ONE
WEEK THIRTY-TWO
WEEK THIRTY-THREE
WEEK THIRTY-FOUR
WEEK THIRTY-FIVE
WEEK THIRTY-SIX
WEEK THIRTY-SEVEN
WEEK THIRTY-EIGHT
WEEK THIRTY-NINE
WEEK FORTY
WEEK FORTY-ONE
WEEK FORTY-TWO
WEEK FORTY-THREE
WEEK FORTY-FOUR
WEEK FORTY-FIVE
WEEK FORTY-SIX
WEEK FORTY-SEVEN
WEEK FORTY-EIGHT
WEEK FORTY-NINE
WEEK FIFTY
WEEK FIFTY ONE
WEEK FIFTY TWO
MAKE UP DRAWINGS (to reach 365 count) - end date