Michael Nobbs

Tag: DrawingFromMemory

  • Three self-portraits and a question to take away

    A loose black ink drawing fills most of a cream sketchbook page. My bald head is seen almost straight on, with oversized rounded glasses, a long nose, small moustache and scattered beard marks. The eyes look slightly in different directions and the right ear is drawn prominently. The outline of my shoulders and T-shirt curves around the lower part of the portrait. Underneath, in hand-drawn lettering, I’ve written: “Drawing myself from memory.”

    Three self-portraits this morning. One in a pocket sketchbook as soon as I’d made my morning tea. A second with the mirror turned away, drawn from memory. And then a third, bringing the mirror closer and trying to find ways to really look at myself again — interrupting the habits and repeated visual language I’ve built up over the last three weeks of drawing my face.

    I wonder what would happen if, for the rest of Selfietember (and beyond), I keep finding small ways to make it difficult to draw the Michael I already know?

    The little folded sketchbook rests on a crocheted blanket in front of my round mirror. The portrait shows my face within a circular frame, with blue glasses, dark shading around my head and orange clothing. In the mirror above, the top part of my real face is reflected, including my bald head and dark blue glasses. Behind and beside the sketchbook are the green teapot, drawing pencils and pens, all gathered on the cloth-covered tray where I’ve been working.
    The drawing stretches across the two-page spread of a handmade folded sketchbook. My face is enclosed within a large circular outline, with dark blue glasses, a long nose, small moustache and beard marks. Areas behind either side of my head are filled with rough black shading, while my clothing is picked out in orange and red. Beneath the portrait I’ve written: “5:00am awake from a pretty good night’s sleep after an impromptu trip to town for fish and chips yesterday evening 19-9-26,” with “night” crossed out and replaced by “evening.”
    The sketchbook lies on a crocheted blanket beside my drawing tray. The black ink portrait is visible on the page, with the words “Drawing myself from memory” underneath. Nearby are a green teapot, a mug, a round tabletop mirror and a cluster of pens and coloured pencils, giving a sense of the early-morning drawing session taking place around it.
    The sketchbook is propped beside a round wooden-framed mirror. In the drawing, my face is large and slightly tilted, with one eye especially prominent, dark pencil marks around the head and red-orange colour across the clothing. In the mirror beside it, part of my actual face is visible behind a yellow phone: bald head, dark blue glasses and orange clothing. Pens and pencils lie on the tray below.
    A larger, looser drawing fills most of a cream sketchbook page. My head is drawn in black pen and pencil, with large glasses, an enlarged right eye, a broad nose, moustache and beard marks. Dark pencil scribbles sit behind the left side of my head and near the top right of the page. Across the lower part of the drawing, my clothing is described with a sweeping black outline and rough red-orange coloured-pencil marks. The portrait feels less symmetrical and more fragmented than the previous drawings, with the different materials visibly interrupting one another.
    A wide overhead view of the bed and drawing setup after making the three self-portraits. In the foreground, a large open sketchbook shows the black ink portrait drawn from memory, with “Drawing myself from memory” written beneath it. Farther up the bed, the small folded sketchbook is open to the coloured self-portrait with blue glasses and orange clothing. Between them is a crowded drawing tray holding a green teapot, mug, milk jug, the round wooden-framed mirror, loose pens and pencils, and other drawing tools. An Oxford English Dictionary lies partly under the smaller sketchbook, and an open fabric pencil roll filled with pens and pencils sits at the top right. Everything is spread across a large crocheted blanket made from blue, turquoise, cream and muted reddish-brown squares, giving the scene the feeling of a well-used, slightly chaotic early-morning drawing camp.

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  • Have I been looking or remembering?

    A blind contour self-portrait drawn in black ink across two pages of a small sketchbook. The face is loosely constructed from overlapping, wandering lines, with glasses, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and one ear emerging from the marks. Handwritten notes at the bottom read “Mostly with my eyes closed” and “Blind blind contour drawing!”, with the date 16-9-26. The sketchbook rests on a colourful crocheted blanket, with a dark blue pen lying beside it.

    I haven’t been following the Selfietember prompts very closely, but this morning I was curious to try yesterday’s: Close your eyes and draw yourself.

    No mirror needed today, of course, and the drawing became essentially a blind, blind contour drawing.

    What interested me most was how familiar parts of my face felt to draw. I almost always begin my self-portraits at the left side of my glasses, then sweep up and around the frames towards my right ear. Even with my eyes closed, that route felt familiar. So did my nose, mouth and chin.

    It made me think about how much of my recent self-portrait drawing may now be coming from memory — or perhaps muscle memory…

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