Drawing portrait from life has it's upside and downside. The first thing everybody involved noticed is that it's quite uncomfortable and awkward. For me, the artist, I notice a sense of wanting to make them ignore me, and allow that self to be as natural as possible. Naturally that's a difficult thing to do, if not utterly impossible. The more awareness we have of our need to run away from awkwardness, the more it becomes heightened in our awareness.
I imagine as the person being drawn, the self-conscious suddenly becomes aware of itself, and all the insecurities that is strongest in our consciousness bubbles up to the surface. When asked what they are thinking, often what comes up are statements such as' please make sure you draw me pretty,' , or ' I am old now, I wish I was young again'. And the focus becomes of 'lack' of what is not there, or is no longer there. It's very rare do I see people entirely undisturbed or completely at peace with how they look.
Why do we focus on our imperfections? Why do we immediately imagine the worse. We can blame it on media, we can blame it on our upbringing, everybody is guilty in perpetuating the conditioned thoughts of our ugliness, while others asked about you will only see the beauty in you. Here's an example. If I were to ask you to think of your best friend, the people you like, and ask you to think of 3 things you notice about them. What we often think about is their personality, how funny they are, how much fun they are to be around, how interesting and uplifting, Rarely do these three things comprise of attributes such as 'she has a nice nose', or 'she is young and pretty'.
While I know this is not an new topic. These postcards I drew from life shows what I see in them at the moment, as well as showing the awkwardness of my process when I am around them. The awkwardness often shows as strokes that are rushed, and the distance that I end up creating between my observation and the person. The more in depth studies of their portraits shows this gap.
I imagine as the person being drawn, the self-conscious suddenly becomes aware of itself, and all the insecurities that is strongest in our consciousness bubbles up to the surface. When asked what they are thinking, often what comes up are statements such as' please make sure you draw me pretty,' , or ' I am old now, I wish I was young again'. And the focus becomes of 'lack' of what is not there, or is no longer there. It's very rare do I see people entirely undisturbed or completely at peace with how they look.
Why do we focus on our imperfections? Why do we immediately imagine the worse. We can blame it on media, we can blame it on our upbringing, everybody is guilty in perpetuating the conditioned thoughts of our ugliness, while others asked about you will only see the beauty in you. Here's an example. If I were to ask you to think of your best friend, the people you like, and ask you to think of 3 things you notice about them. What we often think about is their personality, how funny they are, how much fun they are to be around, how interesting and uplifting, Rarely do these three things comprise of attributes such as 'she has a nice nose', or 'she is young and pretty'.
While I know this is not an new topic. These postcards I drew from life shows what I see in them at the moment, as well as showing the awkwardness of my process when I am around them. The awkwardness often shows as strokes that are rushed, and the distance that I end up creating between my observation and the person. The more in depth studies of their portraits shows this gap.
RSS Feed