Remember how I was learning to draw from this book called ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ by Betty Edwards?
The final exercise was to do a self-portrait, and so about 2 months ago, I set out to draw just that. I set up a chair and my drawing materials in front of a mirror all geared up, confident, and raring to go! Besides, Edwards did claim that anyone, really ANYONE, had the ability to draw. I had followed all her instructions carefully, so where could I possibly go wrong?
Credit: Juxxtapose
This is what I produced from that sitting. Objectively, I think it’s a not-too-bad drawing of an Asian girl with what Chinese call ‘cherry-small lips’. The problem with this is that it looks nothing like me! But, you know, I did put in a lot of effort in the drawing. Just sayin’.
The next instruction in the book was to compare this drawing with my pre-instruction drawing. What this pre-instruction drawing is, is a self-portrait that I was told to do before I started learning anything from the book. The reason for this is that, according to Edwards, students’ expectations of their standard of drawing increases as they learn, and they will constantly be critical of their work despite having made improvement. So this pre-instruction will serve as ‘proof’ of your original standard of drawing.
Of course, at this point, being the critical student I am, I refused to do a comparison. Because how can you call a self-portrait that does not resemble yourself a success?
So after two month or so of being disappointed in myself and frustrated because I did do my best the first time, I decided to attempt another self-portrait. This time I would do away with all the shading and shadows and do a line drawing, in hopes that the end-product would look more like the real me.
Credit: Juxxtapose
This time my mouth seemed closer to its correct size relative to my face. My eyes look googly though. Probably bigger than they should be. I could possibly work on that.
It looks like a drawing of a Mongolian Warrior though, perhaps due to the squarish jawline (which I do have). Very tough and masculine, which still does not really reflect how I actually look like. But overall, it does look closer to how I look than my first attempt.
Again, I was a little disappointed and frustrated at how I was unable to do a self-portrait that looked like myself. But I decided that I had done the best I could, at least for now, and it was time to do the comparison to the pre-instruction drawing.
I must say, at this point, that as I did all 3 of the drawings I am sharing here, I truly truly did do my utmost best in making them true to life. But they somehow turned out different each time, even with both of my post-instruction drawings.
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Now, I am going to show you my pre-instruction drawing:
Credit: Juxxtapose
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
You have the permission to laugh. I literally laughed out loud when I saw it. I drew this in February earlier this year, and I had forgotten what I had drawn because I was told not to look at it until I was done with the book. Obviously I had curly hair at that time and was trying very hard to portray that!
My current drawings are admittedly still not up to standard, but seeing such a stark difference between the pre and post drawings gives me hope that with more practice and perhaps an advanced drawing book, I can continue to improve.
(Previous posts about this learning journey can be found here, here and here)
Juxxtapose 