the week in selfies. Eeek!

What a week.  I would never have thought to do this if it hadn't been our homework assignment for this week from Sketchbook Skool, but I am so glad I did.  It's the "Parade of Selfies."

#'s 1 and 3 look the most like me.  #6 fits well into the "Who is THAT?" category.  The two Blind Contour ones are simply hilarious.  I actually love all of them.  More commentary after the photos.  (Scroll over each to see what the assignment was.)

So, that #6 Selfie (2nd row, bottom right).  Did that today.  On the one hand, it looks absolutely nothing like me.  There's a lot I got wrong.  On the other hand, I can see some resemblance for sure.  I actually like it a lot even though I wouldn't call it a "success" by the measure of how much it looks like me.  So why do I like it?  Because I learned a lot while doing it; I learned a lot about shading, about crosshatching, about watercolor, and just learned a lot also about what can go wrong.  I am actually very pleased.

What a week of learning!  To be doing this with hundreds of other students, all of us posting things daily, was remarkable.  There were the inevitable comparisons and "Oh I wish I could do that" issues, but the big take-aways were 1) how many of us were willing to even try; 2) how many of us posted comments laced with self-criticism, and 3) how many people insisted "this doesn't look anything like me," which may have been true.  Or, may not have been true.  Finally, 4) how many students hated the assignment, or found it "painful."

I realized in reading the posts how many people truly do not like to look at themselves as they are, warts and all.  That made me sad.  And my, how self-critical we all are!  If we aren't critical about the "art," we're horribly critical about how we look. 

I get that, but it too feels sad to me.

Each day I felt like I was rolling out another aspect of myself.  My selfies ALL look like me in some way, shape, or form, even if they aren't photographic reflections.  I had such fun!  It was hard to find the time to do it (partly time, partly fear), but when I finally sat down to work I just had a blast.  There was the uncanny sense that I was discovering things about myself every day, as I saw things I had never seen before.

Someone posted a link to Rembrandt's selfies, which are funny and quirky and honest.  Ditto with Van Gogh's.  There was a big discussion on Rembrandt's nose, and how he handled it when doing selfies.  I was curious to notice that no one mentioned Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, which have been the subject of so much discussion in the art world.  I will be studying these and other self-portraits carefully.  FINALLY I see the value of doing these on a regular basis.  Here are just a few points:

• Just as we can't step into the same river twice, we don't look the same from one moment to the next.
• Each time I do a selfie I learn some secret about myself that I wasn't in touch with before.
• I also UN-learn plenty about how I think I look, or should look, and what that means to me.
• It actually takes courage to do these; I'm not sure I ever realized that before.
• Other people are as obsessed or defensive or concerned about their looks as I could ever be.  Some more so, some less.
• It was a week of lessons on how we view the way we "should" look in our culture.
• It proved to me that I could continue to draw one of these a day for the rest of my life, and never stop learning.

I'm exhausted (this took time!) and SO GLAD I did this and I hope I keep it up from time to time.

Now, on to the next week of SBS.