Fin006 | Self #1
Excerpt from my journal:
20260804
Today is my thirty-first birthday. I figured the most fitting way I could commemorate the day was to do my first ever self-portrait. I have been drawing for years now but I have never attempted one. All I really wanted for my birthday was the time and space to sit down for an hour and try. So when I woke up that is what I did. My baby sat across from me on the kitchen floor, playing with a random assortment of kitchen utensils, and my wife rolled out and began to bake some scones. The door was open to a beautiful morning view and the air was pleasant and still. A great start to an otherwise ordinary day.
The first thoughts I had was that this was going to be hard, and how the hell was I going to get any likeness. Beforehand I hadn’t thought about the difficulty of sitting up straight the whole time so that the reference wasn’t moving, or the fact that I could not step back and look at my drawing and reference simultaneously. But during the process these thoughts were fleeting as I continued to get lost deeper in the charcoal dust.
Honestly, it came out better than I expected. Slightly. It was also really quite fun to do. That said, I am glad I set myself a 60 minute cut off, otherwise I would keep tinkering away on it all day. Working on the piece until it would be completely overworked.
I don’t really get birthdays, but I have been thinking I should do a self-portrait for a while. I knew the drawing was going to be shit and I knew the only way to not draw a shit self-portrait was to first draw many shit ones. Today seemed like a fitting day to start that journey. Perhaps at my next birthday I can do another. Then compare their shitness. After all, misery loves company, and I love to draw.
Happy birthday me.