I said I've been drawing so I did a couple self-portraits because I'm the only reliable model I know and I have a lot of patience because I'm the one who's drawing! I miss drawing portraits from life so much. My last project was all photos and for practice I would draw myself and sometimes Mary. There's nothing like drawing from life. That is where we should be looking. Photographs are unreal even though they appear to be objectively capturing a moment of light. It's just one perspective: the camera. The moment of live is ever changing. Things are alive and that's what I'm trying to show in my portraits: someone who is alive. Photographs capture such a small amount of information. This drawing captured a full day of my life. I wasn't working continuously but that was how much time passed before it was done. Everything I've done in my life prepared me for this drawing. All the things I was doing that day influenced the work.
Overall the brightness structure is mid to high. I stayed high throughout the development of the work and added darker areas towards the end. I measured more carefully than usual but also not exact at all. I used a mixture of knowledge and feeling. I'm actually proud of this one because it's very even in the brightness, it makes sense. I like the way the forehead became because I always have trouble there.
Always observation. Stopping and staring for long periods of time. I used to get nervous staring at the models in art class. Probably because they were naked and most of the time I wasn't, ha! I go to public places and stare at people and sometimes draw them and I feel creepy about it. An artist will stare and there is nothing wrong with that. This is what I'm to do while trying to be an artist.
Sincerely,
Mark VandenBosch
4 comments:
If this is 'trying' to be an artist, it seems to me you've succeeded, sir! For me, this somewhere between Van Gogh's self-portraits and early Chuck Closz without being derivative of either. Altogether not bad company. Also, your philosophical take on the subject's totality of experience vs. a snapshot in time harkens me back to the ideas of the cubists and futurists. But whereas they tried to very literally convey the idea of life as continuum in their art, your work is subtle, earnest and unpretentious. Keep up the good work, Grabs!
Thank you, John, for your very thoughtful and sincere words.
Mark,
Have you ever seen the movie Wings of Desire? Peter Falk plays himself and he's always doing sketches of people. The way the movie is done, you can hear what everyone is thinking. The whole movie is great, but you might particularly enjoy some of the passages when he's thinking about his subjects.
mark, this self-portrait is amazing. bravo!
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