Drawing Self-Portrait

We did self-portraits tonight.

I was hesitant at first, although self-portraits have been in the back of my mind for a little while now, because Beth did them in her class.
(She also did a really fantastic self-portrait.)

But they are difficult and personal.
It is the most intense way to face yourself.

I liked the discussion around it from an artist viewpoint.

This is not meant to be a "pretty" self portrait, nor is it supposed to be a likeness documentation.
It's not about that.
It was about an hour and a half of drawing.

Simon had really, really nice things to say about my drawing.
He said it's also an artist's portrait and he drew composition comparisons to music.  That was really nice to hear.

From my viewpoint, this was a tough self-portrait not from a composition standpoint, but from struggling with vision! I have trouble holding my eyes still enough to look at myself at the right angle!

I left my right eye blank intentionally for two reasons- one reason is it is an artistic style thing that is somewhat common to build one eye up more than the other as a focal point.

The other is that I have so much trouble on-camera with my eyes- both seeing stuff and also my right eye doesn't behave.  This difficulty is such a huge thing I deal with over Zoom.

I could not do a self portrait like this without acknowledging that in a significant way.