breakthrough, with 50% more fancy italian words
I’ve been taking an intermediate figure drawing class at UCLA. I love the class, I love the instructor, the models are always fantastic, the lighting is good, I’ve learned a great deal, and it’s been a very positive experience.
Except.
Every week, there is one homework assignment. A SELF PORTRAIT. The parameters vary, one week it might be using chiaroscuro, sfumato, or simply black and white chalk on colored paper, but it’s always the same assignment. Another SELF PORTRAIT.
I find flow looking at things outside myself, most especially in the natural world. It quiets my mind in the most amazing and restorative way. I can get lost for hours looking at the contours of a shell or a skull - even at the face or shape of another person.
I don’t have quite the same reaction to mirrors, though. An hour of self contemplation, even with really interesting light, only results in my mind wandering.
“Hm, I should get a haircut. Something different. Maybe I should go back to that place in Brentwood. I liked that place. I want to let it grow out, though. Maybe I should try a different color. Hm, interesting. My eye teeth are not totally level. I wonder if I should call an orthodontist. Orthodontist? HA. I haven’t even found a dentist I like in LA. I should start with a cleaning. Tooth whitening, too. I don’t want to look like one of those scary super bleached out Xenon headlights people, though. I wonder if their teeth fluoresce under black light. I probably should drink less coffee. If I lightened my hair, I’d definitely need to get those Xenon teeth treatments. I need to get my car smogged too. I really need a better todo list. Someone should write a program for that. Oh wait, someone already did… I should really check that… I wonder what my password was…”
So I never leave the analytical world. Bad monk, no Zen. Consequently every homework assignment I bring in ends up looking rather like a technical illustration: flat, analytical, literal. Distracted.
From Diary, by Chuck Palahniak :
When they were in school, Peter used to say that everything you do is a self-portrait. It might look like Saint George and the Dragon or The Rape of the Sabine Women, but the angle you use, the lighting, the composition, the technique, they’re all you. Even the reason why you chose this scene, it’s you. You are every color and brushstroke.
Peter used to say, “The only thing an artist can do is describe his own face.”
You’re doomed to being you.
This, he says, leaves us free to draw anything, since we’re only drawing ourselves.
Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand.
Everything is a self-portrait.
So my teacher has been bemused by the vast difference between my loose and more abstract style in class and that of my homework.
“You are too careful about how you look,” he said. “Just look at the form, at the light. This week, when you draw your portrait, use charcoal, and wipe it down. Draw it again, and wipe it down. Keep doing it.”
So last night I set up shop in front of the mirrored door in Mike’s office. I have one in my office, too (I live in Los Angeles, where there is some local zoning ordinance requiring every room in every home to have at least one floor to ceiling mirror), but I decided a change of scenery would help.
So I sat down at the mirror, face to face for a friendly fireside chat with my nemesis. Armed only with a sketchpad, sanguine and black charcoal, a pentel click eraser, and a dirty old chamois cloth, I drew. And wiped. And drew it all back in. And wiped it all away.
Self-portrait, Sisyphus.
It worked. After the first awkward line drawing was wiped away, I started right in on the next one. With each wipe down, the paper got dirtier, I got dirtier, the surface got more interesting, and the proportions got easier. The slightest hint of drawings past remained, a charcoal scent trail, refined with each generation. Just like the ants do. Do the hard work this time - it might be mostly washed away, but it will be easier the next time.
Draw. Wipe. Do it again.
Almost an hour passed. I didn’t notice. I forgot to obsess over unrelated details. There was even a decent rendering of my own face on the page - far more interesting and rich in texture than the work I’d done before. And the most unexpected thing? I really enjoyed it.
I actually enjoyed doing a self portrait.
It’s a truly magical thing when you find a teacher gifted enough to not only recognize a problem, but to also prescribe a solution. The kind of person who can still teach you something, who can surprise you, days later and miles away.