I remember the day I turned three years old.

My family was waiting to eat a meal at one of my favorite restaurants to celebrate my birthday. While we waited for our food to arrive, my dad was sitting across the table from me drawing something on the back of a kid’s menu. I wasn’t really paying much attention to him, because all I could see was the top of his head as he drew. This memory is very abstract in my mind up until a certain moment. My memory of this day becomes vivid the instant my dad flipped the paper around to show me what he’d been drawing.

Until that day, drawing was just a flailing of the wrist for me. Art had no meaning, and I honestly couldn’t have cared less about it. But when I saw my dad’s drawing, something in my heart came alive. Art suddenly had weight to it. Watching my dad take a blank piece of paper and create something completely new baffled my understanding as a three-year-old.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, this week I decided to draw a self-portrait. As I sat across from my own reflection, I began to think about the people in my life who made my art aspirations possible.

It was my mom and grandma who believed in my dream, even when I didn’t. It was my brother who unknowingly pushed me to become a better artist. It was my friends who always had something encouraging to say about my work. It was my teachers who gave me new perspective. And it was my dad who first inspired me to become an artist.

At the time, those moments likely weren’t too significant to the people around me. But to me, those moments changed my life.

If ever you feel that nothing you do matters, just know that people around you may be taking inventory of your actions or words. It can be easy to believe that only “big moments” change people’s lives, but I can attest that isn’t always the case. Sometimes it’s an encouraging word, and sometimes… it can even be a little drawing on the back of a kid’s menu. No matter the case, your interactions with others are very important and valuable.

Self-Portrait: Problems and Solutions

As with any drawing, I began taking measurements of my subject (in this case, the subject was my reflection). However, a problem arose that I had not considered happening beforehand. While I was sight measuring my facial proportions, my reflection’s hand blocked my view. As a result, I ended up having to take a mental note of the plumblines and proportions.
Another problem was that the subject just wouldn’t sit still (whoops, my bad). I knew doing a self-portrait would be challenging, but I didn’t realize it would be this difficult. Personally, that frustration of “not being good at something” made me want to do it even more. In the future, I will do another live self-portrait. However, I will likely use a desk mirror instead of a hanging mirror.

Facial Expression

I decided that I wanted to draw myself with a “wide-eyed” expression. In my previous drawings, the models were looking down, and I really wanted to draw eyes to expand my experience. Additionally, I slightly raised my eyebrows to create wrinkles on my forehead. Lastly, I decided to somewhat smile.

Lighting

For this drawing, I decided to use two light sources. I positioned the first lamp above and near my head. The second lamp had a weaker brightness and was positioned farther from where I sat. Additionally, it was positioned on the opposite side of my face in relation to the other lamp.

Linear Drawing

I always like to start my drawings with a basic outline of the figure. Here, I made markings along the face to indicate where I needed to place shadows in the next step. I always pause here and double check my measurements before moving forward.

Value Block-in

Next, I block in the shadows in their most simplistic form. Typically, I squint at the subject matter to eliminate any details and to help me find shadows easily. This time, I decided to indicate the highlights in this value block-in as well.

Completion

My final step is to add detail and finishing touches. For this drawing, indicating the wrinkles on my head and the highlights in my hair were the main final details. In total, the duration of this drawing was 3 hours.

Self-Portrait: Reflection