Leah’s Drawing Portfolio: Assignment 4.2

For the concept of my drawings I chose to do self-portraits to focus on how frottage creates a direct, indexical connection to the subject - and that nothing is more direct in frottage (in my opinion) than the link between the art and the artist because the techniques used to create the patterns is reliant on the artist’s use of the desired textures. Even if the subject was not a self-portrait, I would have still left an imprint on the paper through the rubbing techniques, so in a way I chose to embrace these inescapable connections to the pieces. For the drawings the first one is more of a self-replica of sorts, while the other is less so and leans a little towards iconography in the contours and most obviously the eyes (frottage was still used for the patterns).

Drawing 1: Untitled

Dimensions: 18 x 24

Media: charcoal on newsprint

For my first drawing I really wanted to focus on only using the indexical to create an image. I took a sheet of newsprint and crumpled it to form a cast of my face. Once I had created the paper replica I flattened it out so that it would be easier to rub the charcoal on - which I did on the areas still exposed after this folding process. The last step was unfolding the drawings to show the contrast between the light and dark areas. The charcoal picked up the folding prints that my face left on the paper. I had tried working with better quality drawing paper, but it didn’t fold as nice or easily as the newsprint. I ended up making three of these drawings but like the pattern of the second one (below) best.

Process:

The newsprint after folding it around my face. This was my second try with folding -the first try didn’t work and I never ended up making a drawing with it. This one was used for my first drawing,

After the flattening process (first drawing)

The second drawing after flattening and applying charcoal.

I experimented with my second drawing by rubbing the pattern onto a piece of nicer drawing paper. I didn’t like this one as much because the charcoal did not come off as dark and I kind of missed the look of the fold lines.

The print of the second drawing, done on drawing paper.

My final drawing (top left) and other attempts.

Drawing 2: Seemingly Me

Dimensions: 18 x 24”

Media: Graphite sticks (2B and 6B), coloured pencils, gold marker, fine tip markers (for outlining the gold marker) and acrylic paint on drawing paper

With my last drawing I created a contour portrait of myself and then filled in the areas with various surfaces from around my house. To contrast it with the first drawing I used multiple mediums and added colour to the background using pencil crayons, and to eyes with acrylic paint. I tried to use the various rounded patterns to create a sense of form to the face, and rubbed graphite over Spirographs for the circular shapes in the hair. I applied more pressure when doing the frottage in certain areas to shade them. The apron was done with wood floorboards, and tile was used for the shirt. I added more realistic eyes using acrylic paint because I felt that it created a more unsettling quality to the drawing and also gave it a bit of life. The title comes from the idea that all of these surfaces and textures can be arranged to form something that is ‘seemingly me’ but in reality is still just a collection of surfaces that lack a decipherable meaning without the more iconographic parts of the drawing. The other surfaces I used were a cookie jar lid (face), a round placemat (face), a textured wall (face and sewn parts of apron), a patterned glass door (background), and a metal grid (lips).

Close-ups:

Progress:

The start of my drawing. This sheet ended up not being my final piece because I wasn’t happy with it after I started the frottage.

My first attempt - I didn’t like the way that the frottage patterns were organized so I decided to restart. I traced the outlines using a sharpie and then used a light box to trace them onto a new sheet of paper.