Brief:
Observational drawing as ‘seeing’ and mark-making. The purpose of this assignment was to experience how a self-portrait and the rendering as visual communication can express important aspects of your personality and sense of self.
Self Portrait . 2019 . Fineliner . A3 White Paper . Observing self in a mirror .
I am an achiever who is also a perfectionist. This means that I try and do everything perfectly to make sure I do well. I sometimes limit myself in what I create because I’m afraid of it not being ‘beautiful’. This assignment challenged that part of me by forcing me to embrace the imperfection and trust the process.
In the piece, I focused on linework and tried to portray the controlled, perfectionist part of myself in the geometric, cross-hatched structure of my glasses and contrasted that with the free-flowing, continuous-like line I used in the rest of the elements that symbolise not overthinking and letting go of the idea of ‘perfect’. Something I found tough, but necessary to do, was to know when to stop and not to overwork the line. I wanted to give the message of my choice to begin a transformation to trust myself and trust the process and understand that design or art doesn’t always have to be stereotypically ‘beautiful’.
