What are you looking at?

I've been staying away from my computer for the last few days because it's giving me bad backaches. I'm old. Being on the wrong side of 25 isn't easy.

So, after feeling uncomfortable while sitting in front of the computer or even the TV or trying to read a book, I finally moved to my living room and it's dimly lit ambience made me feel bored (and depressed) enough to draw again. Wohoo!

I loved drawing from a very young age. From the time when I'd sing 'colour pencils are a girl's best friend'. And my OCD behaviour made me sharpen and arrange them in colour order everyday. I was insane.

I went from drawing on my blackboard to my backward 'etch a sketch' to chart paper taped to the wall when my grandmother was afraid that the artist in me would go flying close to the living room wall with my watercolours.

So, yesterday, I sat with my Faber-Castell Roller + Staedtler Pigment Liner (0.1) and my little sketchbook and tried to make a self portrait from memory. Only because I was way too lazy to go find a mirror.

Here's my drawing - it's a case of 3 brothers separated at birth and reunited at a fair.
In reality, it's 3 drawings on 3 different papers stuck together on photoshop.

me by me.

Drawing from memory always has its flaws.

Do you always see yourself the way the rest of the world sees you?

I have always wondered about that.

When you look in the mirror what do you see?

The first time I tried making a self portrait, it looked only 40% like me.

I wondered what I was doing wrong.

Then I bothered to look carefully in the mirror and paid attention to each feature in terms of shapes, sizes, distance from each other, and how these features create shadows on my face.

I noticed how the ball of my nose is a proper circle and how my eyebrows and eyes aren't as far apart as I had thought.

Each observation has led to a different interpretation and execution which is always fun.

I was looking at different styles and here are some of the interesting ones I've found.

by Michelle Hartney.

by Denis Gonchar

by Samantha French

by Rich Pellegrino.

Anyway, now it's time to do my hourly Doctor recommended exercise.

Or maybe I should do some Qi gung so I can be ready to Hi-Ya!

Even though one is Chinese and the other is Japanese.