Two Book Reflections

Our last assignment was to draw a self portrait from a mirror (no photos). I decided to use this as a review of the differnt media we used in class; Sharpie, charcoal, conte crayon and pencil. 

I knew from wood carving that getting a human shape is not that hard, but to get it to look like someone in particular is tricky. Our eyes are attuned to notice small differences in facial features, so only s small variation makes a big difference.

cross contour with sharpie

Charcoal, which has a softer feel than ink/sharpie

Conte crayon

Pencil – 6B

After #3 (Conte crayon) my daughter suggested I avoid lines and think in terms of blocks of shade. So the pencil worked best for me, though getting two eyes to do the same thing is a work in progress.

The eyes are the hardest part – in class most of us tended to make them too big. The instructor also warned us that we will look a little grumpy becasue we are concentrating on details when we look in the mirror. 

It was a good execize.