This is my 2011 art project: I'm going to attempt to do one drawing every day of the year. The drawings can be any medium, any size, any level of care and completion. I'm looking forward to seeing how my work evolves and improves, and whether this practice helps me to be more organized and "together" in the rest of my life pursuits.

Click on any of the sketches to enlarge.

Friday, July 1, 2011

7/1/11

July self-portrait

This was kind of challenging - I stood with my back to the mirror, and had to turn around to see myself. Then when I was drawing, I was turned away from the mirror. So this is really from memory - but then again, all drawing is from memory, because you have to take your eyes off the subject in order to see your drawing. So even if it's for just a split second, all drawing is from memory.
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3 comments:

  1. Helen OJuly 2, 2011 at 4:15 AM

    This is a challenge to remembering what you've just seen! I believe it was Whistler who would go down to the waterfront and turn his back to the scene he was drawing in order to train his memory to take in and hold onto more of what he saw.

    I find that if I am drawing several times a day, (on a long trip, for instance) that after a while I can retain the posture or gesture of a person for enough time after it has happened to get down a pretty good approximation, and in the beginning I never can; I'll get a head, or a leg, but not the whole. I'm interested to know whether you can carry this exercise of memory training over into your daily drawings.


    Similarly, this is how airplane spotters were trained to instantly recognize various aircraft during WW II so they could sound the air raid alarms if necessary. (Radar made this obsolete.) They were shown silhouettes of various planes flashed on a screen briefly (1/10th - 1/50th of a second). They began with a couple of seconds and were shown them for ever-shorter times until they could identify those planes in a tiny fraction of a second.

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  2. EmJuly 2, 2011 at 9:28 AM

    All interesting and true...
    And this is one of your best likenesses yet (!) although thankfully this more solemn, even glum, expression is not as familiar to me. You're usually smiling or laughing or looking concerned when I'm looking at your face... hmmm. Now I'm not so sure that's good...

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  3. Amy MannJuly 2, 2011 at 1:02 PM

    But I'm not looking glum or solemn, I'm concentrating - and trying to hurry because I was really late, and also it was kind of a pain (literally) to twist around like that to see myself from the back.

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