Narrative Self

#draw365 – see the groups’ drawings here

My Gallery – see all my drawings for the 365 project here

Another self-portrait.  Carrying on like this there might be 356 self-portraits by the end of the year.  That could be a project. Could I sustain enough interest in looking at nothing else for 365 days though?  It certainly wouldn’t be borne out of some sort of narcissistic drive, I can tell you that. No, I look at myself with drawing or painting materials to try and understand how I feel, who I am, why I am.  I don’t know how successful I am at that; I don’t know what I’m learning about myself by doing it.  I don’t even know if anyone else can know these things through the drawings.  But the generous comments you’ve left encourage me to keep trying.  The hardest thing for me is not to judge their worth, not yet.  It’s not to judge how good they are technically or stylistically, even though these elements are the least important they are the easiest to judge.  To judge negatively that is.  But there’s no point in striving to change these unimportant things, instead I need to strive to explore emotion, through marks, gestures, colours, shadows.  It doesn’t matter if ‘it’s a bit flat here’ or ‘a bit twisted there’ – maybe the flatness I see in the drawing is simply a reflection of the flatness I feel.

Thank you so much for your feedback, I cherish it and it really does encourage me to continue.

Conte drawing. Self portrait...

Conte drawing. Self-portrait detail.