If you want to join in, you can check out the full contest here. The challenge is to create a self portrait, show your steps making it, and write a little bit about yourself.
Drifting Dreams
Between fallen feathers and clumps of fur
In the whispering streams of the wild
Down twisted paths of gorse and fern
Wandered adventuring child
Beneath the shifting dapple of leafy sky
Feet sunk in the cool dark stream
Dandelions breath wisping the breeze
She lived in the bubble of a dream
But far she wandered, mountain child
Like water drawn to the sea
She followed the call, the ancient call
That urged her to be free
She left the gorse of yellow fire
The meadows of grassy embrace
She walked in footprints many times trod
Trying to find her place
River surged against ancient brick
In a castle of cobbled street
There she found the path that she walked
Was not one beneath her feet
Deeper she went, further she dove
The call in currents drawing her home
To gorse a-hum with insect life
To paths she used to roam
From there she wanders without her feet
Through bracken, gorse, and stars
Through streams than flow through heaven and earth
Past orphan planets and cold quasars
The jackdaw flies on the northern wind
Chasing the same ancient call
The fox the fawn the fowl the beast
The same wind calls to them all
Wild flowers dust sleeping eyes
An un-felt breeze tugs on her hair
She wanders through place she'd never been
and was never really there
The Process
I really wasn't sure how to approach this. I started out by getting a photo of myself and trying to recreate it, focusing on the lines, and the details. I ended up getting the shape of something I was both very happy with, and so saddened by. It wasn't a bad picture, the shading was quite good, i'd managed to capture some of the lines, some of the shapes, but it was all distorted. I magnified every flaw, and even though I got some of the shading, it felt like a hollow accomplishment.
I realized I don't want to see myself like that, not to draw myself, and not to think of myself. It isn't particularly accurate, and I was just being mean to myself. My other half found me drawing it, and very diplomatically told me although my drawing skills have improved, it didn't look like me. There was some resemblance to the photo I was working from, and I had captured some of the flaws fairly well, that was all i'd captured. So somewhat symbolically I turned the paper over, and started on the other side. The idea of self is a strange thing, and I feel a bit like i'm doing something wrong when I try and describe it. Looking for somewhere else to begin, I thought of an album cover for Sleep by aswekeepsearching who are very much worth a listen.
Image Source - used under Fair Use. Album Artwork by TANAYA SHARMA - check her out on Instagram or get yourself a print from Art&Found
This is something I really love about this, and even though it is digital, and far beyond my skills, I had the thought to try a self portrait, that was more idealistic, not the body or the face I was working towards, but the sense of self I am working towards.
I started with some outlines, getting an idea of space on the page. Thank you Mia for helping model this first progress shot. She made a fairly destructive assistant, but can't say no to her eagerness <3
Drifting, falling, floating, lay down - I tried to go for something where it was hard to tell. I got the vague shapes I wanted out, and put it away for the night, determined to mull it over, and come back in a more positive space. The next morning i got up, and got back to it. I took out some flowers, refined my lines a bit and added some more cosmic elements.
It took literal hours to get the details right ready of color. I moved so many lines millimetres, slightly adjusted shapes, tweaked and teased, and finally, had something i was happy with, and there is hardly any difference on the photos! Lol, something learnt for next time.
When it came time to add colour, I mixed up some watercolour to get some nice different shades, with the sort of dreamy pastel tone I was aiming for.
I was surprisingly pleased with that! I generally would say I have no artistic talent, we have artists in the family and its a high bar, but after doing this I've realized with enough effort and patience, I can achieve something I'm happy with. I kept going with the colors, using fine line felt tips for detail.
I was quite tempted to call it there, but after some thought, decided the add more outline to the body, and more shading in the hair.
Instead of writing about me, I've included what became a very lengthy poem about the search for myself.
I grew up spending a lot of time outdoors. We live on the edge of a national park, and our back garden opened up onto the hillside. My mum used to let me spend hours exploring on my own, even as quite a small child. It was before the whole stranger danger scare, and I lived in a very small village - everyone knew each other, and no one bothered with the footpaths so no one minded me wandering around. My parents had rescued a little dog, a long haired collie cross terrier, tiny, very long fur, completely wild, looked a lot like Pippin from Come Outside. It would go off exploring on its own every day, and at some point I just started doing the same. (Not together that dog didn't like me one bit lol) It seemed normal, and I loved it.
I spent a lot of time playing in streams and in the wild, and although I didn't interact with anyone much when I was doing it, it gave me a strong sense of self. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of that, the poem describes the dreamy beauty of the wild of my youth, when it seemed so vast yet so complete. Moving away in the hunt for happiness, finding everything I should've needed, but still longing for a feeling of belonging. Looking outside myself to figure out who I was. Until in my early twenties, I realized it wasn't out there.
I found that life brought back to the beautiful place i'd grown up, that despite it's beauty, (because of people,) i'd sworn never to move back to. I found everything wild I had left behind was still there, changed, but remaining. The same wild that once held me, still does. The tree i'd found dug up in an historic excavation, and ditched with the debris to wilt, the tree i'd carry a good two miles along the hill, and replanted, was taller than me. I've still not completely embraced myself, but I realized that sense of belonging, that thing I was looking for, was being comfortable with myself, and over the past few years, I've had plenty of ups and downs, a few storms at sea - don't we all, but i'm getting a better grip of the wheel, even when the boat feels like it might tip over.
I love to dream, to imagine, to ponder the connects between life, the vast wonder of the universe, the vast wonder of the jackdaw who no longer alarms when i walk by. I spend most of my life in a detached bubble, to the point I can really struggle to know how to talk to other people sometimes. So here is my self portrait, lain bare to myself, adrift, part of the great bubbling wild, that stretches from the budding wild flower to the depths of space.
Although I prefer how it looks at an angle (and where I haven't accidentally cropped part of the picture lol,)
All photos mine unless otherwise credited.