After the manic amount of work I did during my residency in Boise, Idaho earlier in the month, I’ve hit a bit of a slump, probably not helped by jetlag, so I gritted my teeth and sat in front of a mirror this afternoon and scribbled what I saw. I don’t usually do self-portraits but I wanted to experiment with some portrait drawings using black and white media – conte crayons, compressed charcoal, carbon, oil pastels. I also wanted to get away from the usual detailed, fine pen work I use for portraits and develop a much more scribbly style.
I’m very influenced by Kathe Kollwitz, a brilliant scribbler and printmaker, and she did lots of self-portraits. makes sense, I don’t have to pay myself. But it’s not a comfortable thing to do. I noticed every single wrinkle, every bit of flab, every blemish eeewwwwww. I haven’t got the likeness right yet, but I’ll keep practising. This is on a piece of A3 Bockingford, 250gsm, prepared with an ink wash and drawn in black and white conte crayon, carbon and white oil pastel.
scribblah 
Phew. You’ve hit a slump. The rest of us might catch up. Oh, hang on, its another striking thought-provoking image …
I am struck by the subtle shaping with apparently coarse diagonal lines.
Phew. You’ve hit a slump. The rest of us might catch up. Oh, hang on, its another striking thought-provoking image …
I am struck by the subtle shaping with apparently coarse diagonal lines.
Thank you. I’m trying to build up layers of tones with scribbled lines, so must keep practising…..
Rosie, I really like it! I hope you continue to do more self portraits in the future. Keep up the scribbles!
🙂
Thanks Gale. I’ll probably keep up with the self-portraits for a while because I’m feeling too lazy to go out and do some sketching around the city. And I’m free. And I suppose I should write something very erudite about my artistic motivation, rather than I’m cheap and lazy hahaha