Self Through the Lens of Art

Lately, I’ve been spending hours each day deepening my creative skillset. I’ll bounce from workshopping a short story to watching a YouTube video about line edits over lunch and then opening the tab where my next book proposal lives. Tonight, when I finished the third draft of a piece I’m very excited about, I needed to pour into my creative bucket. Sometimes that means reading, or watching a film. (Most recently, The Sunlit Night starring my dream human, Jenny Slate, which reminded me to finally buy her book, Little Weirds. It’s on its way to my mailbox now) This time though, it meant creating something visual. A self-portrait. Something I could include in an upcoming project.

As it always goes for me, I started and immediately thought “well, that line was terrible. This is going to be hideous.” It always feels like a failure at the start. It’s like I dive into a project and expect it to be fully realized the minute I take a step forward. Luckily, I know that voice is a sweet, protective liar and she does not get to do the executive functioning around here. So I kept going. After a while, the main lines were complete, and then I decided to do some interesting textures that ended up taking it to a totally different level. I didn’t have a plan to do the loose cross-hatching when I started. I didn’t plan to make the hair so deeply textured, or the shoulder and bust area so vague. I couldn’t have plotted out this woman. I just began.

Self Portrait

May 20, 2021

Unless you’re some kind of prophet, you never know how a piece is going to turn out. You just have to play with it until it’s done. I’m so glad I didn’t give up with that first line. (It was the jawline, by the way) It turned out better than I could have hoped.