Hello!! Welcome to Swim Along With Me. Each month, I’ll be making something different, and I’ll invite you to come on in for a glimpse at the process. This means, start to finish, photos and everything, you’ll see how I make. If your inbox truncates this post, click here to read it fully on substack.
I try to make at least one self portrait every year. Oftentimes (like now), this falls to the end of the year when I’m feeling reflective. But they also pop up at other times, when I need a new profile photo or I’m excited about a new medium. Here are some of the ones I’ve shared over the years, from most recent to oldest. Most are from 2020 and 2021.
You’ll notice that many of them are digital, but I’ve characterized myself in paint, pencil, and even embroidery thread over the years. When making these, I was often thinking about characterizing an outfit, expressing something about my personality, or an emotional state. My favorite of the bunch is “2021” which was drawn in pencil quickly in my sketchbook, then colored digitally, which is still a way of working I’m really loving. But there are many things I love about all of these!
You may notice that the most recent one is from 2022. I haven’t made a single self portrait this year! So, I’m feeling out of practice with the pursuit. Where should we start?
I think it’s important for the portraits to feel embedded in my life. Usually, I work from photos, and choose ones that feel (not necessarily look) important to the present of my life. But, this year my grandmother gifted me a large mirror that I see myself in all the time now. So, mirrors felt more relevant than photos.
I sat down with this set-up at my dining room table:
Like I said, feeling embedded in the present day helps me with these portraits. I’m using the book I’m reading to prop up the mirror. I’m drawing in a Handbook sketchbook (my favorite), though I also have a Royal Talens sketchbook nearby in case I want to switch. I’m drawing with Mitsubishi HB and 4B pencils. The power was out while I worked on this, so I sharpened my pencils manually. This sketchbook already has my name painted in graphite because I recently redid all the lettering for this newsletter and my website. No better place to start portraits!
Before beginning, I never know if I will spend a long time on one drawing or hop around between drawings. But, once I started this, I knew it would only be the first of a few drawings. The close-up was fun, but not quite capturing the spirit of the moment that I wanted. I often start drawing faces with the nostrils, and I did so here. I like drawing hands, so I added mine to the pose.
In general, I don’t mind if a self portrait really looks like me. Vague as it sounds, it matters more that it feels like me. The middle photo (the drawing in progress), feels like me, but the finished drawing doesn’t.
I immediately wanted to draw something looser. I looked to the big mirror in front of me.
I set a timer with the hope of moving quickly, then immediately jumped into this next drawing. With the rush of the timer, I did not take progress photos.
Almost immediately, the drawing felt better. (Yes, I am wearing my new vest!). I like the quickness, the looseness, and the minor absurdity of it. I decided to quickly (but slightly more slowly) make a third drawing. It feels a lot more like me in this moment.
I was interested in making the mirror a larger part of the portrait, and of zooming out further. I pulled up this selfie from a few weeks ago, sitting in a similar position at the table. This drawing is sweet, but it felt less like me when I finished it. I do like the composition and the callback to a previous day.
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Here are the scans of all three drawings (on an Epson Perfection V600 scanner):
And here they are after being cleaned up in Photoshop:
I am by no means a Photoshop expert; I just do a few things to every drawing I bring in. I convert the file to black & white, then I use Levels to adjust the dark and light colors. Then, I use Spot Healing, Clone Stamp, and Eraser to remove any unwanted hairs, marks, smudges etc. If there is a lot of general smudginess, I use Magic Wand to select an area, then delete out the color. On drawings as loose and rough as this, that’s it!
I could definitely choose one of these and call it a day. I might end up back with one of them since graphite is actually my one true love as a medium. But, I like to always give color a chance since I love color! So, I now upload them all to my iPad and Procreate.
My Procreate workflow is super simple for adding color to something like this. I add a new layer and use multiply as the layer mode. Then, I color over top of the drawing, almost exclusively with the 6b Pencil. I do have some other brush packs that I like, but I really don’t spend enough time painting digitally to know them well and reach for them. I work all on one layer to better mimic a traditional workflow.
Now, let’s make some decisions.
Sort of like I knew from the beginning, this is not the piece. It doesn’t feel like me or encapsulate the moment of now. But it was fun!
This drawing presented another branch on the decision tree. I still love the drawing itself, though I’m certain that the color is edging out the full black & white. But, partial color, or full? Not sure! I think it’s a thematic and narrative question.
And then, there’s this cutie. Could the framing be any more perfect? Again, this image is narratively quite different. This is what I look like, waking up and sitting at my table to journal each morning.
I guess you know which image I chose since it’s the cover of this post, but I’m still not sure. Thanks for swimming along with me, and I’d love to hear if you have any thoughts about this new series, a self-portrait practice, or anything else!
What a great idea! We forget how we change through the years and this is a good way to chronicle! Brilliant 🤩
Love the one you choose. 😍