APOCALYPTORNOW

drawing self

portraits

Adam & Eve


This is bigger than wall size.

Gouache, alphacoal

square shaped charcoal sticks and watercolor

3 pieces joined paper that was toned with

acrylic gouache.

I added the third paper piece to put all her feet in.

Noted it was overworked, my professor said this

theme would be

done

in sepia or umber and sanguine tones with Conte.

He asked me during the group critique

“Could you have been Adam?”



My first self portrait. 1994

Schaber talked about my sensitivity to texture, grazing

his fingers along the hairs on the nape of the neck.

Done in the mirror in 2 hours as homework.

“Teacher Lady”

Black and white gouache on

illustration board.

This was painted on a grid for a 2D design class at LMC, using a magazine photo as a visual reference.

Did you know the early 20th century painters worked on a grid?

I never knew that, for a long time.

You can see a reflection of my camera from years later.

Great fun to push around 

and handle the paint.

Gouache has a special

velvety matt texture.

It is used extensively by designers.

To move it around, play around with thick textures, carefully model those shapes. Note her flat fleshy white face,

and solid mass of black hair.

Was your mom a teacher?


Two for Teas?

Used India ink and Swiss made watercolor pencils on heavy textured wc paper. Note the elongated shape or “strip.” I used a photo I took of myself, combined with a lovely singer I found on the internet. The paper contained little or no size, or glue, which is added to some paper in order to control the absorption of water. Thus the pigment sinks, into the page.

In this actually quite a lot.



Diptych

double self portrait


Ground sumi ink stick brushwork done with a Taihitsu and chalks from the Chasov Yar clay pits in France on Chinese rosewood bark paper.

I photographed myself in my quarters, about the third day I was in Shanghai doing an artists residency.

I experimented with the prints, putting one beside the other, moving them around until I got what I liked, to create a visual reference. Probably the best drawing in that show.

A young woman visitor insisted that

"it looks like a two guy"

and that I was a "narcissist."


Sign off time WNDU broadcast

THE SAINT FRANCIS PRAYER FOR PEACE

Saw it every night.

Its been with me since then.