Wax Bloom

Well, its been a year since I started drawing again. Since completing Clara on March 3rd of 2007, I’ve done fifty-one portraits.

My technique has changed dramatically in that time, going from cross-hatching to very saturated and painterly. I’ve gone from using white cold press illustration board exclusively to prefering colored surfaces and as of late, sanded surfaces like Pastelbord.

A quick look at what I was producing a year ago:

And what I am producing now:

Huge difference, I’d say. Skin tones are more modeled and realistic, the eyes have life…it just feels like a more accomplished piece.

For an even more stunning comparison of progress, lets have a critical look at my self portraits. This one, done in 2004, embarasses me to no end. At one point I was really proud of this piece.

While its a likeness, its not exactly a good one. The composition is poor, the execution is sloppy, the eyes are flat, the modeling of the flesh tones and shadows are particulary bad and the transitions from light to dark are jarring. On the plus side…well, no – there are no good things about this one. I regret that my wife spent money to have it framed, honestly.

Following that drawing, I did a few more and then quit for another three years. In June of 2007, I produced this self portrait:

I still hadn’t graduated past cross-hatching with this drawing, but my concept of color and shadow has obviously improved over the first self portrait. The eyes have more life and the skin tones are more realistic, displaying more confidence in the use of blues and greens to indicate cool highlights and shadows (and not having them stand out as oddly placed fields of color). However, it still feels more like a “sketch” or a study than a drawing that took six hours to finish.

The next portrait is a graphite drawing, and I wasn’t sure I should include it in this retrospective since its not the same medium as the others. But, a drawing is a drawing, after all and this one demonstrates more patience with the pencils and an even more refined grasp of playing light and shadow against one another. Its also the best likeness I’d achieved in a self portrait to this point.

And although there is more patience with it, there isn’t quite enough. Portions of the drawing have a rushed or bored quality about them.

Lastly, we have Self Portrait IV, which as I stated in the original post, I feel I “leveled up” on. I was able to see colors and details I had never noticed before, and found myself surprised to be able to translate those details onto the canvas. It was very much like pushing past a mental block – I could almost feel it crumble in my head, if you’ll allow me to be so cliché.

I think the improvements over the last three are self evidant. A year of drawing faces has given me an ability to draw what may not be there but what needs to be and an intimate familiarity with the anatomy of the face and how light plays across its surface. And yet I have so much further to go. When I do the two year retrospective next year, I’ll wager I hate this one. Any takers?