Self Portraits

Well, a sketch blog is not much good without sketches. I have been thing a bit about where I should start with documenting my drawing. I decided that a strictly chronological approach would be a little dull. I thought it might be interesting to see some evidence of the value of formal instruction on artistic ability.

The first drawing of my art class was a self portrait from memory. This is nearly impossible to do and in fact it was not meant to turn out looking like yourself. The purpose is the get a baseline on your drawing skill and as a way to see your symbols for facial features. Below is my first self portrait.




As you can see, this drawing is not very good. Trust me when I say that this doesn't really look like me and I would have been surprised if it had. The eyes and nose are particularly bad. In fact, they are symbols and don't look like real at all.

The final exam for the class was another self portrait. This time it was done at home over the course of a week. I setup a mirror on my desk and started in.


This is a much better drawing. Even if you don't know what I look like you must agree this is a much better picture. I really feel that I made huge progress during this class and it has inspired me to continue and art education.