D.I.Y.

Having had the urge lately to draw, and not having touched a pencil for at least a year, I decided in the absence of a local life drawing class I would just sketch myself. First I spent an excruciatingly embarrassing half-hour filming myself au naturel. Then I printed out some very (I mean, very) blurry stills from which to practise drawing.
I don't know why it felt so embarrassing to pose, since no-one is ever going to see the actual photos. And as soon as your nude self is rendered in green texta you no longer feel quite as exposed. But I remind myself a bit of Woody Allen at times, in the sense that I am neurotic about stuff like, I'll get hit by a bus, and people will find all these cheesy nudes on my computer and printer. So the whole process was done furtively and hastily and with one finger poised above the Delete key. I was trying to remember the poses from life drawing class but I soon discovered it's not at all as easy as it looks. I have an even greater respect for life models.
I took my son's crayons, textas and colored pencils and sat down for my improvised sketch class. It's tempting to try to 'airbrush out' physical flaws, but I try for realism as clumsily as I can. After a while, the session started to feel less about drawing and more about getting to know myself. I'm not used to giving myself such close scrutiny. I sort of started to appreciate why artists do self-portraits alot, both the easy access to a model and for self-awareness. It might be very self-absorbed, but for me it just felt good doing that left (or is it right?) brain stuff for a change and I spent the rest of the day on a high. Love it.
Here's one in crayon.