As an ongoing practice I sometimes put a test on myself. For instance drawing white objects against a white background. I thought some pieces of garlic would be a nice challenge. It turned out to be less difficult then I was afraid of. When I looked close at the garlic, I saw all kinds of colours hidden in what I thought was a white surface. All I had to do was to exaggerate those colours to give depth and 'life' to the drawing.
Last saturday I attended a beginners workshop portrait drawing. One of the exercises was to draw a selfportrait. The difficulty was that you weren't allowed to look on the paper to see what you were drawing. Purpose of the exercise was to let your hand 'feel' where the different parts of a face are. At the end I'm glad I don't look like my self-portrait!
One of the things that is important for your brain to recognize a face, is mainly the shape and size of stains that are 'hidden' in a face. Your brain doesn't really recognize a person by the looks and number of detail in his or her face. So one of the exercises was to make a portrait just by painting stains.
I must say it was very enlightening for me, also because I'm used to draw in a very detailed way. It's nice to know that there are other ways to make a drawing. Or portrait, in this case. Certainly a very well spend day and challenging to see what I can do with that knowledge in the nearby future.
It's always a treat to start of the day by eating a croissant. I prefer them with strawberry marmalade, although a little butter with sugar tastes almost as good.
As I was making sketches this week for a drawing I plan to make about different kinds of bread, I had this deja vu of drawings I've made about 15 years ago. My nephew, who owns several bakery-stores, asked me to make drawings for a series of ads he was planning to place in the local newspaper. The drawings were supposed to be used all year round, so I made several different ones. Themes were: Christmas, Eastern, New Years Eve, and so on, and so on. Luckily I've found a print in my archive to share with you, cause the original drawings are long lost. No one knows what happened with them. Maybe they show up at an auction when my work becomes famous...
