Category Archives: One self-portrait a day 2012

February self-portraits – assemblages, landscapes, graphic work and sketchbooks

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February’s had some contrasts.

The month began positively with a personal assemblage work and a graphic derivation of it, which I hoped would shake things up a bit. Since then I’ve returned largely to mirror work of questionable quality.

So far this month there’s pencil, ink, pastel, impressed cardboard(5th), gouache(10th) and charcoal(13,14th) and frequent shifting of scale – from sheets of cartridge down to notebooks, sketchbooks and paper bags(8th).

For the non-visually-representative work the subject matter is becoming more personal, so finally there’s a landscape(15th) without figures. I thought I’d have found that route far earlier.

February 16th saw me correcting the prior composition and setting to match the particulars of the subject that’s been in mind for some time – I think there’s a painting coming together.

Day 33, Moo-cough and I

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February 2nd

February 2nd


Only in discussion during today did I realise that yesterday’s ready-made was, when examined with or without prior knowledge of me, probably the most descriptive and personal work so far.

I’m happy that things are taking a turn, I’d hate to end the year with a majority output of still-looking sketches of varying quality. The range of media, and the developing themes I’m following are giving me lots to think about, much to enjoy and more to look forward to.

Continuing the slightly obscure theme, this is the first digital work of the project, Illustrator and a little Photoshop.

I do not smoke, I never have. I do own a pipe, and a plastic bull.

 

January draws to a close

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Here’re the final self-portraits for January, representing a return to hasty.

Again, I’ve been very busy in other areas of life so time for portraiture has been slim.

Taking a line for a walk

January 23rd - 2

January 23rd

January 23rd was a good day, there’re two images here drawn using a single line, from the view in a mirror and with no glancing at the paper  – so features appear all over the place. They were then photographed in negative. I’m particularly happy with how expressive these two are.

There were too many quick sketches last week (even on café napkins), and again I’ve considered halting ‘one self-portrait a day‘ in favour of longer term projects.

However, I keep coming back to the ideas I’ve not yet explored, such as abstraction and typographic treatments that could be executed in a short time.

In the coming weeks I’m going to consider applying themes to a week’s output, as a means of ensuring I explore something new every day.

Only 344 days to go

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Here’s the crop of self-portraits from the last week:

January 16th:

A frustrating start to the week – a small oil study that I had to abandon. I took a rag to the wet surface in the hope of resurrecting it at some point.

January 17th:

I returned to pencil & cartridge paper, looking at the shots I took of this showed me I need to watch my shading – I did some corrections before uploading the day’s final image.

January 18th:

Light blue letraset marker on watercolour paper, stood very close to the mirror.

January 19th:

Heavily sleep deprived in this one, so no smiles. Enjoyed the differences made by holding my head – fold’s around the eyes and more interesting shadows.

January 20th:

A quick follow up of the same themes on the next night – having had some sleep. Again some tonal adjustments made with an eraser before finalising.

January 21st:

A total departure – animal transformation for a start, and my first linocut print in more years than I care to recall.

Linocut is very rewarding – the design was drawn up in a sketchbook and applied in pencil then ink, but was being adapted during the cutting process. Cutting took about an hour to complete. I had hoped printing would have been more successful, so I’ll be working on the home pressing techniques.

January 222nd:

After last night’s lino print, I’d tried to get a monoprint from the remaining ink on the glass but was unsucessful. I rolled the ink evenly again and left it to dry so that today I could scratch into it directly and then backlight it, here’s the result of some swift scratching.

media

I’ve thought alot about media this week – particularly grounds and supports – with an anything-goes mindset.

I’ve tried painting on a (spare, unused) smoke alarm (pencil works well, but using an eraser was surprisingly problematic given the plastic surface) and I’m now considering what can be achieved with other materials as either a support or a sculptural / relief material.

Expect noodles.

How it’s going

I’ve been tempted this week to adapt (at best) or abandon the whole project – mainly because it’s already provided me with the intended results – I’m working creatively, regularly and in range of media.

I now have a list of painting, printing and other works I want to begin, so producing a daily portrait can seem like a burden.

Perhaps ‘one self-portrait a fortnight’ will be the way to go? For now I’m going to persevere. I’ve proved I can make the time so I’ll try to get some longer-term projects running in parallel.

A second week of self

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Week two: surreal, desperate, but going in the right direction.

At the start of the week I found I could get a likeness without looking, just idly doodling in sketchbook. This is bad news, it’s the process of observation that’s important, not the ability to recall. So I’ve tried to take more time over the plain, representational ones this week.

I’ve thrown in some other approaches too – depicting my face upon a small matryoshka doll stood upon a notebook (‘that’s rather sinister’ was one response), and another looking out over the river but will odd, converging shadows.

I am still not producing the kind of work I would like to, but the journey’s begun and most importantly I’m thinking far more, and further ahead.

Available time remains a big factor. Thankfully at the weekend I had some time to run through various ideas and use some other media.

One Self-Portrait a day

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At 6am on January the first, I sketched a self-portrait:

…it's too early for this!

…and thought that might be a fun, creative, enlightening, educative and perhaps exasperating thing to do every day.

Every day of 2012 I’ll execute a self-portrait, and share it using Twitter the same day. Sharing them provides an impetus to complete each day’s portrait, and gives me the determination to work on my methods and my approach.

An audience (even a theoretical one) gives me a reason to improve. The risk is that you end up sharing 365 crap images of yourself with the world, the pay-off is that every day you add to your experience, your conceptual and technical capabilities, and your satisfaction with your work.

Week one’s self-portraits

The output so far has been representational, brief and sketchy, possibly no surprise at the outset. Representationally, they’re not up to much. I am capable of better, but this is a journey.

Time

The greatest constraint so far has been time. Time to conceive an approach to a portrait as well as time to execute it. Thus the first week’s output has been low concept, and quickly executed. I’ve tried to vary media a little during the week but each has been a very direct method.

Not having the time to work on drawing and painting is the best reason I can think of to continue this project, regardless of the work produced.

Concept

Telling yourself you have to do this, every day, is at once a burden and a joy. Until you place constraints on what you do, you don’t realise the clarity of thought you can attain within those limits.

I have many plans for where this project will take me, my thought processes and my experience with various media. My immediate aims are to work in paint and some form of printing as soon as I can, but working with traditional media will just be one part of the project.

Every week or so, I’ll add a post here on recent works and where I think they’re heading, and more importantly where they’re taking me.