A Bit of Drawing.

Eye Attempt…
Graphite on Paper.
February 7, 2013

I have been creating in small amounts lately.

I picked up my pencils for the first time in a long time when I drew myself earlier this month. After resigning these instruments to a long hibernation, I wasn’t quite sure how I would handle them again. I never really liked drawing in the first place, I’m not quite sure why. I used to doodle in class — random geometric patterns, stars, and cartoon creatures in the margins of my spiral notebook — but I guess drawing has never been my medium of choice.

Over the past few weeks I’ve focused on the human face. After my last post, the act of representing the human face sparked my interest. I’ve done some research, watched some online tutorials, reflected on some drawing instruction I received in college, and I’ve discovered that there are so many techniques for approaching the human face. With an emphasis of proportions and symmetry, these techniques map out the approach, like a recipe, for achieving an accurate representation of the human face.

However, I methodically have a problem with this — I’ve always been one to stray from a recipe, adding more of what I like and less of what I don’t like.

An individual can use whichever technique he or she finds most helpful, but I urge the reader to look in the mirror, or really look at the subject — my face is anything but symmetrical! Not only are we imperfect natural beings, but the way we each perceive a human face is different from the way everybody else does.

Untitled.
Charcoal on Paper.
February 18, 2013

During my attempts, I realized this. I made some attempts to represent images from the internet, but I found trouble with lack of enthusiasm, so I didn’t push myself. I began to observe the individual features of these subject and just attempted to represent those individually, without context, and sometimes by creating my own morphed subjects. In college, I really enjoyed working with live models, getting to know them and then representing their figure. I think the lack of personality — or lack of personal interest — is a factor when working from images of people who I have never met from the internet.

However, I truly believe that there is something to be learned from every experience, so I plan to practice more with some of the techniques — I would be missing out if I dismissed the experience altogether.

I found that I thoroughly dislike drawing hair…. and I end up drawing bald females…