Portrait #20 Alex R.

Sorry for the delays. I've been keeping up with the sketchies but not posting.

I made this drawing of Alex over winter break in Jersey, after we did Jersey things like go to the diner and drive around. This portrait marks the first in my new sketch pad, which Alex helped me buy discount with his mom's account (she's a painter?). It was nice to visit my favorite art supply store... I always dreamt of working there in high school but they only hired full time staff and college kids.

I had to draw Alex twice to get it right, which may or may not be symbolic of the fact that we rarely see each other, being that he goes to Ithaca. I still don't feel like this version really captures his essence (neither does this picture really).

I feel a distantly close kinship with Alex since we are Jews from the same area of Jersey and both turned out having radical politics and an artistic/hipster sensibility (important to admit). We met through my friend Joanna in high school, but didn't become good friends until the weeks leading up to the National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR) in Washington DC where we bro-ed down and smelled the stink of anarchists. The peak of the weekend was when we attended a workshop on polyamory in which the facilitators disclosed their sexual relationship, and prompted us to break up into partners and practice having open dialogues about our HIV status, sexual history, goals for the relationship, etc. It was both very educational for us to have this conversation and also obviously very strange. Most people were paired up with complete strangers, if not political acquaintances. After this weekend our gmail chat relationship declined and now we mostly play phone tag over breaks where we're both in NJ.

Anyway, it was really nice driving around in Alex's rickety 1988 car (topped with a bike rack), and observing the development of his eyewear into the hipper. Too bad we don't do that more often because maybe then I would feel more of a comfort that would lend itself to a better portrait.

Portrait #19: Neil M.

Neil came up to me in the library when I was drawing Antonia and asked me "Beeeeth.... when are you gonna draw meeee?" since I had already asked him. I told him in five minutes. I was proud that my new approach at getting sitters was working. People are so busy at the end of the semester that I decided I should just go to the library with my drawing supplies and draw them when they are doing their work. They were all holding still anyway so why not kill two mosquitoes with one slap. I was glad I knew people in a central place (Hannah and Antonia) so that securing the next sitter would take care of itself, by way of drawing performatively.

The first time I drew Neil in that sitting it was a total disaster. We were sitting in this weird quiet area which was also very dark (maybe the lighter areas are more enabling in terms of noise level?) so I decided to switch positions to get a better look into his eyes. By accident I made his torso too small, so you might notice that I wrote "+3 inches down" underneath the picture. Actually Neil's mini-size makes me feel more comfortable around him than I would if he were real big. I also enjoy it when Neil pretends to nudge and box with me, it is like a little boy thing, or like I am part of this dude-but-gentle-dude club with him because we are in the same height range.

The fact that Neil is on his i-phone in the picture is important. He is kind of known as one of the Big Dems On Campus in that really employable way. I'm pretty sure he started a nonprofit called Vote from Home and took a lot of trips to Ohio before the election. He also has a twitter and is probably subscribed to Barack Obama's twitter. Apple products are a really big part of his life.

Portrait #18: Antonia

Antonia is Hannah S.'s roommate, so I know her in a very indirect way. Most of what I know about her I have learned in their room when they are winding down from the day. For instance, she really loves the sitcom Friends and has cute pajamas.

She and Hannah recorded some music videos of them singing hits like "Stacy's Mom (has got it goin on)" in which Antonia played the guy singing and Hannah played Stacy's mom. In another video, they sang a Backstreet Boys song where they were both in drag. I totally wanted to throw my panties at Hannah, because she was such a convincing Backstreet Boy. Antonia secretly showed me the videos when Hannah was out of the room, which embarassed Hannah more than I've ever seen. Little did she know how much Antonia's help gave me a deep respect for her ability to portray Nick Carter (and stacy's mom). Antonia was really adorable trying to imitate masculine singing movements, and her giggliness prevented her from staying in character as commitedly as Hannah.

The night I drew Antonia was the first snow of this winter. She was wearing a white scarf so I wanted to use that to create the effect of snowyness. She looked really calm and warm inside her layers while she did her homework in the library. I am proud of my attention to detail in this drawing, especially in the scarf and folds of the sweater. I think I had access to that attention to detail for this drawing because it was the essence of the way she was attentive to her homework. (It is interesting how my approach is different depending on the sitter's personality.) Maybe you can tell it is snowing by the way I drew her.

By the way, Antonia and I have the same camera case. It is pink, so that's awesome, but I told her some friendly advice that my screen still broke inside that case so she should be careful.

Here's a really fuzzy and not helpful closeup. You're probably better off with the above one considering how fucking adorable she looks in the first one.

Portrait #17: John ("Jawn Wahkuh")

After I drew Gil on Thursday John and I went to the music building to do his drawing while I chatted with Ellary about Jews and racism and jazz music for a project she is doing. John is also a total pretty boy and so I tried to emphasize all his cute madonna-esque moles and his metro style. I made his face too stretched out because I'm so short, so we took a picture of him looking at it from an angle. I think it is the most accurate angle at which to take a photo since it is how I saw it at the time. The below, conversely, is how John saw the it while I was drawing him.




This all took place in Ellary's teacher Glenn's office while he was in the studio on the other side of the door, grooving away on his guitar. I could tell from the sound of it and from his concentration despite guests that he was very intentionally in a zone that we, nor anyone else, could snap him out of.

But, I was pleasantly delighted when Glenn came out and said a lot of things like "Man oh man! Hey dude, that drawing is groovin!" (long hair swayin and his carelss gait). Meanwhile, John was eating clam chowder from the pub and trying to keep his energy low so that he'd stop fidgeting. John was pretty fidgety and freakin out, if you ask me... there was a lot of "ehh! Sorry I keep movin but I'm so suh suhhhhh nervouS!" John is adorable and has studder spasms which have been recorded in France by many facebook videos. He has been pretty comforting to be around in our time of grief. We got through a lot of really sad times this semester by being silly and cuddling and queering out and making up campy jokes. Our favorite is, "You think you know but you have no idea." since that used to be the title of an MTV show. On the same note, we also like "True Life: Don't Make Me Look Fat" in reference to his request for the drawing.

Portrait #16: Gil

I first heard about Gil when I got accepted to Sarah Lawrence. My down the street neighbors, the Brancaccios, had moved from LA when I was 14 and knew someone from LA who was going to be my year. They were like oh, this guy Gil is awesome, and its so funny because he's a Jew named Gentile! Ha Ha You Should Say Hi To Him When You Get to School. I had pretty high expectations because this family was my favorite out of my parents friends because they were the most intellectual (and famous... David used to host Marketplace on NPR before they moved. and Mary was an awesome English teacher at my high school and really knew how to talk to teenagesrs, I noticed at my mom's 50th birthday party.)

But then I got to school and found this weird looking guy who seemed like a cave person. I didn't say Hi to him until I was at a party during orientation this year (or was it last year?) and as soon as he spoke I realized he was totally NOT a cave person. We totally bonded over knowing Nick Brancaccio since this kid had been in all my art classes and I wanted to be his friend and he and Gil were both into stuff like architecture and drawing. I was so down.

Then Gil and I took the same sculpture class and he totally sculpted a poop for his mold-making project. I thought it was the most brilliant and strategic use of a mold I had ever seen. I hope he makes a million of them and sticks it in someone's room or office who he does not like.


Anyway, Gil was hard to draw because while he has very distinctive features, it didn't look like him until I got millions of marks down to make his hair big enough. John, who is the sitter in the next post, sat behind me and watched and was very encouraging, shouting things like "WOAH that was a good move" when I scratched in some dark eyebrows above Gil's glasses. Gil was very pleased because not only did I get his masking tape on his glasses (SO important) but I made his nose bigger and longer. When his special someone, Zara, came in and saw the drawing, she said the same thing and was like "wow I bet he's so happy you made his nose bigger" and he smiled because it as true. Mostly I really liked making the patterns on his sweater because I think they capture his personality. Also I think his expression ended up really funny.

Here is another picture I drew of Gil once during class:

Portrait #15: My Dad

After I drew my mom, I drew my dad while we watched Spiderman with Kirsten Dunst and that nice boy Toby McGuire, made possible by our new digital cable's hundreds of channels. I kept getting really distracted by the TV because I forgot how good and slightly campy Spiderman was. (For example, the green goblin kept saying things like "The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout. Down came the Goblin and took the spider out" and "Can Spiderman come out to play?".)

We laughed a lot at the description under the "GUIDE" button: "Nebischy student finds his new powers..." etc. NEBISCHY? When I think of a "nebisch" I think of the people from synagogue when I was a kid who always smelled like cat pee and were all 4 feet tall, who my mom and I call the Silkopaths. I'm sure Toby McGuire (?) does NOT smell like cat pee. But it is interesting to think about whether or not the person writing blurbs for the network is Jewish (or nebischy).

So the story I was going to tell in my last post about how we can joke about our differences goes like this. My dad told his coworkers the story about how I told him he jokingly should feel like an asshole since I got straight A's my senior year after we'd argued a lot about my grades when I was a sophomore. He thought it was really funny and a symbol of our newly stable relationship, but I think his World Financial Center office of Merrill Lynch thought it was strange we talked to each other so candidly. What can I say, we are Jews.

My dad is also the only man at Merrill Lynch with a beard... their token gay financial advisors look a lot more square than he does.

Drawing my dad was adorable because he looked really happy watching tv, kind of smiling in his eyes. I've learned a lot about my genetics from recording my parents' features, since I have studied my own in drawings for many years. I think I get my nose from my dad but I have bigger lips that him (his lips aren't just buried under his beard, they really just are paper thin.) Also I have learned a lot about facial hair from drawing boys. (More hairy boys later.)

Portrait #14: My Mom

I drew both my parents over Thanksgiving break at their newly remodeled home in Maplewood, New Jersey. For over a year, they had been doing construction on the house I grew up in, moving the bathroom to the foyer of the house and knocking down some walls to make the breakfast room and the little kitchen one big space for food preparation and consumption. It was kind of amazing to have home-cooked meals finally, after a year of coming back to a very dorm-like eating arrangement in the basement. It was also totally weird because I feel that it is a direct result of our class position changing. (For more photos of our kitchen, click here.)

My parents keep making comments to me about how they don't want me to think they are "bougey" as a result of this, because they know that after I left the nest I became more radical. What is special about my family is our ability to joke about our differences and make it a joke in common instead of a division. (More about that in the Dad post.) I don't think they're too bougey, beause they are my adorably happy parents, and at least they are not the Power-Elite. Also it would be SO MUCH WORSE if we celebrated Christmas. I am so against Jews celebrating Christmas. Chinese-food-and-a-movie forever.

Anyway, I drew my mom while she fell asleep reading the New York Times book review, one of her favorite sections. I hope I properly portrayed her relaxation-- she gets very sleepy at night. Over Thanksgiving break my fam stayed up late a few nights watching old family movies. My dad would be like, Oh no, I have work tomorrow! It was adorbs that we love Slutzky family time so much.

I also hope that you can tell she is scratching her dog, George, on her right side. He is so dark that he really had no forms for me to define so I just made him really curly. You can't really tell from my mom's straight hair but George def looks like a Slutzky with that curly hair. Here are his legs! -->

Portrait #13: Cooper

If I remember correctly, I drew Cooper the same day I drew Hannah D. I had very similar feelings about hair texture, as I was getting into the physical motion of drawing the wavy hair texture. I'm still wondering about the degree to which drawing hair texture in public is performative.

Cooper was super poised while I was drawing her, and the texture of her book's pages was interesting. I've drawn some boring looking books in my day, and this one was a different scene. Thanks for holding your book in a more interesting way, Coop.



I've been really impressed with Cooper's work in our class. There was this one project where we had to use performance to change a space, so Cooper decided she would literally "climb the stairs" of her building like a monkey. It was crazy because she was so fast that the class had to run up the stairs to keep up with her. I felt like I was on a safari chasing a wild monkey, as Jeanine clicked shots of Cooper in her natural habitat.

Portrait #12: Hannah D.

Drawing Hannah D. was pretty enjoyable because I really like the planes on her face, and her intense look of concentration. She said afterward that she didn't really like being drawn. I think it may or may not have made her uncomfortable. It was different drawing someone in the studio during hours when people were around, because I got a lot more feedback in progress. I think people were into it, which was encouraging. It's interesting when drawing intense textures and shading becomes a performance of sorts, while also being for my own personal fun. I mean, check out her sweet glasses. I was into drawing her hair because wavy hair is kind of amazing to me, as a curly haired person. Also I am a really big fan of Jewish noses, as previously mentioned.

Hannah was weaving or crafting with her hands while I drew her, which is why they are so scribbled in. Hannah's conference project for our sculpture class is based in creating a little greenhouse environment for plants which represent her connection with a friend who is on the other side of the world. She is always making little fun objects which add personality and warmth to the space.

Portrait# 11: Hannah S.

This portrait was done after one or two dates that I had with Hannah. Since then we have started dating-dating. This portrait was hard to get through because there was a lot of tension, and she was obviously nervous and distracted from her homework. I was pretty distracted too, which accounts for a decline in my "learning curve" in portrait drawing. (I.e. I could have done a much more accurate drawing had we just been platonic friends.)

This one, more than the others, taught me about the gaze (GAYS?) of the artist and how it changes the way people look when they are being observed, and how the gaze is not objective. I mean I guess that was obvious in the previous posts about sitters' requests based on their insecurities and my willingness to attend to their needs. For Hannah's portrait, the effect of my gaze was very unspoken, yet pronounced. (Apparently Hannah was looking up our horoscope compatibility instead of writing a paper.) It definitely remains one of those moments where a couple asks each other in retrospect "what were you thinking then?"

This whole "gaze" thing sort of captured a then-power dynamic based on me being older and her being new to Sarah Lawrence, and new to the clubs that I've been organizing. Since then, I think this power dynamic balanced out a lot, thank god. I was worried I'd end up like my ex-boyfriend, who made me feel like I had to read the complete works of Marx to be on his level. I really don't wanna be that guy!

Portrait #10: Alanna (and me)

Alanna's portrait was the first during which she also drew me. It was very intense (and postmodern!) because we were both listening to our own music and having our own experience fueling those emotions into codifying our visual perceptions of each other. We were using different media (I was using graphite and she was using a micron pen on a small sketch pad) so there are also inherent stylistic differences since she didn't have as many smudgy gradients and I didn't have as much of a contrast between lights and darks. Maybe that is what pushed me to really dig in with the graphite stick to up the contrast. I think people who walked by us in the library were kind of confused about what was going on. Because whatever it was, it was out of place and hella intense.



In each portrait there is a different emphasized area or technique, which isn't always conscious but always interesting to read into depending on the relationship. I realized recently that since most of my sitters are doing homework while I draw them, their gaze in the direction of their hands. While hands are usually the last thing I think to draw, the drawing looks incomplete without putting them in since that is, in some ways, the focal point. In Alanna's portrait I tried to resist this temptation to scratch in the hands at the end, but I think they are still not as worked out as the folds in her sweatshirt or her facial expression. I consider that a strength in the rendering of her computer since it makes apple's design look a little silly instead of severely geometric. (My first year I did a whole painting series on people and computers... more later on the Fe Fy Fo Femme blog.)

Anyway here is the drawing Alanna did of me:


I'm pretty pleased with it because she gave me very strong, Jewish features in this really stylized way. I wouldn't say that the visual image is how I see myself exactly but I'd say it's generally flattering. I also think it's kind of funny that she included my lower back sticking out from my clothes on the side. Alanna is apparently a very truthful draughtsperson-- something I wouldn't know from what I've seen of her conceptual sculpture and photography work. It'll be interesting to compare how I draw myself as a final portrait for this project to the portrait Alanna drew of me. (Foreshadowing????)

PS. I feel that she made me look Byzantine like these lambs.

Portrait #9: Lisa

I met Lisa last school year when I was assigned to live with her on campus in Slonim 8. We immediately became friends due to our common love in artist Cindy Sherman. Actually, before I got to Sarah Lawrence I saw a facebook group called "Cindy Sherman: Or, How I Became a Lesbian"... which I joined. I knew deep inside that I had found the right school for me. So it was saach a pleaszhuh to look back on that group two years later and realize that I had become friends with all 4 people in the group, Lisa being one of them.

Lisa and I had a nice time taking advantage of my homework assignment in order to catch up. I consider her a close friend of mine although we aren't that good at hanging out on a regular basis-- I'm too flaky and Lisa is too reclusive. She would make fun of me last year for not knocking on her door enough, to which I replied, "well, you're all the way downstairs!" Mostly we run into each other in the library and on the train from the city but it is always just like old times.

For the drawing, I took extra care on her fingers because I always thought the way she held things was really nice. Her fingers are kind of long and pretty, touching things delicately, and you can kind of imagine her kneading bread with them or doing something cozy. (Not to force her into a gender role.) I also took extra care with her glasses (because they are so angular and add an interesting dimension). I kind of wish I got to draw her teeth because they are also very nice as you can see from the photo.

It was also a relief to finally draw curly hair again. Being the curly headed gal that I yam (I YAM WHAT I YAM... LOL LISA!!!111) I have a special comfort in drawing the kind of shape I learned on. Speaking of which, Lisa's mom sent me a book last year called "Curly Gurl" after she visited from Houston. AWwwwwww. Like motha like dawtuh.

Portrait #8: Charlotte

Before I drew Charlotte, she went through my big bag of old clothes and picked out the sweater she wanted. Her project (for the same assignment as this blog) is bartering/exchanging objects with people, to find out what they will trade their things for. I was pleased to draw her in her new sweater; it looks better on her than me. It also produced some nice folds that I liked drawing with the thin side of my graphite stick.




This was not the first time I drew Charlotte, although it was the first time I drew her since we've actually known each other. She was the sitter for this painting that I did first year (but not for long enough that I'd be able to accurately paint her hair and shoulders):



I thought at the time it looked pretty cool despite the lack of hair-resemblance, since I focused a lot on the background (using a palette knife) and the way it related to the foreground on the profile side of her face. I think I learned a lot about planes in this painting, specifically in the cheek/eye/bangs part of the painting. It's hard to see the nose in the more recent drawing but I think I did her nose more successfully 2 years ago. The lips and eyes are pretty similar in both pieces, which is not to say that Charlotte still looks the same. It is hard to know how much my brain records images and how much it injects into each drawing a preconcieved notion of each person's physical essence.

Today Charlotte and I collaborated on a performance piece for the class we are in together. To read about it, you can go to my other blog, called Fe Fy Fo Femme (as soon as I post on it). Basically what happened is that we performed Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give it Up" on the elliptical machines at the gym, therefore breaking the social seal of individual gym music/body experiences. I wonder how my approach to her drawing would change after that.

Portrait #7: Jen

Jen is my new buddy. She is an awesome organizer for Solidarity Club, which is organizing against the evictions of tenants in the Hill House apartment building which was turned into a dorm. I think it is pretty tight because evicting the tenants is a super sketchy and unethical way of making some extra cash for our tiny endowment-- the College would probably make at least 4 times the amount off of sticking first years into triple-bedrooms, since the apartments are currently rent stabilized. Anyway. Back to Jen. She is rad and makes President Karen Lawrence tremble with her revolutionary fervor. LOL We really love radical theory and praxis!

Also Jen came with me to the FIERCE Bowlathon and was part of our JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice) team. It was fun and I beat her bigtime in the second round (75 points! Jeez I am a bowling star waiting to happen JKJKJK).

While I was drawing Jen, she was reading this book called "The Oral History Reader" pictured in the lower left corner as "THE ORAL". I tried to portray her true beauty but I think it only half worked. She looked toadelly teen girl hardcore on my bed in her black pants and leg position, especially since we were listening to Sunny Day Real Estate (I needed some sad music in the background and I figured the best place to find it was my 14-year old music library). Jen didn't mind the music even though she is really into hip hop and freestyling.

I think the position of sitters near my pillow definately has an effect on the mood of the drawings and the experience. It's like I'm examining from afar the way they interact with my personal sleeping space. As the semester goes on, they are more likely to want to study while I draw them and sometimes it is hard for them to concentrate and/or sit still. Jen was good at concentrating since we were in a reflective mood.

Epilogue: Quit Playin' Games with My Heart

I am very grateful to have drawn a portrait of Spencer on October 6th. About ten days later, October 17th, his heart failed after taking a turn for the worse and he died in the hospital. It is so sad that his life was cut so short. It was really unexpected (at least for me) because I was really convinced by his attitude toward his heart condition that he was going to be fine. He had so much courage to live life so fully and remain as active as he did. I am really glad I got to know him better in the weeks leading up to his death, and it's been really hard in the weeks after it to realize that we can't keep developing our friendship in the same way. (He lives on through our memory of him, and all the things that remind us of him.)

His parents were very glad to have the picture of Spencer with the portrait, and now they have it on their refrigerator to help them remember him. (I offered them the drawing itself but they wanted me to keep it so that it can help me remember him.) Apparently the day I had drawn him was his mother Penny's birthday, so in a way it is a gift to her to have such a recent and angelic photo of him. I'm really glad for my art to help a family in the unbearable process of grieving for a child.

It has been interesting to reflect on how my drawing my friends marks a new step in our relationship, and how the intimate process of drawing them helps us acquaint ourselves in a basic but intense way. Spencer was very persistent in becoming part of this drawing project that night while we were waiting for our other friend to call me. He clearly really valued the experience of being drawn-- for example, he held out a stillness for a very long time, and finally he asked "hey Beth do you mind if I scratch my head with my right arm? I'm SO ITCHY." It was kind of ridiculous since he was doing me a big favor to hold a pose for a lengthy time without pay/collateral, and tried to ignore his itch for so long. That's kind of similar to the way he was about his heart, I think-- never really complained about it. When I told this story about the head-scratch at his memorial on Thursday night, Penny came up to me and said that it was an example of how much Spencer would do anything for art, and told me a story about how he had bronchitis during a school play, and miraculously controlled his breaths to not cough for an entire scene (only to let out some hacks as soon as the stage went black).

I guess in a way this blog has had an overall cheeky tone, which is fun but also doesn't really get at all the truths of the experience. When I was drawing Spencer I couldn't get over how sweet he looked sitting there looking up at me and how nice it was we were getting to know each other. Which is of course connected to the Backstreet Boys joke. Multiple truths.

Goodbye, Spencer. We love you and miss you.

Portrait #6: Brian

So far Brian has been the most "involved" sitter I have drawn. (Meaning he kept nagging "Can I see it?? Make my chin longer, move my eyebrow up. I don't think my ear goes out that far" etc. If you remember from the first post, he was the one that asked not to be drawn as "skinny and Jewish". That portrait failed pretty hard because of my attention to his requests although I went pretty wild with the texture of his sweater (which he wore again in this portrait). This time around, he was very interested in the other sitters' requests for certain features and was very pleased that I subconsciously emphasized his Italian side. Brian has a newfound affinity for Italian culture after spending a year in Florence. After I was done with the drawing he commended me that it looked like an Italian fresco. Mostly I like the rumpledness of his sweater and how it shows his slouchy posture. The picture above reveals the witty, performative side of Brian's personality.

Brian had a really good time eating the Trader Joe's Ginger Snaps while being drawn, and talking about his crazy dreams which he was excited to go to sleep for. We also went to town making up new lyrics to "Wagon Wheel" pertaining to Obama. (e.g. "rock me momma like a wagon wheel" --> "barack obama can cook brisket meals") We tried to incorporate both mainstream media coverage of the election but also some radical politics "Barack obama let's be real, barack obama you're imperial. youuuuuuu can project onto him your politics". To which Brian "HA HA HA HA HA"ed at for about a commercial slot length of time.

I'm Beth Slutzky and I endorse this message.

Portrait #5: Muriel

"Have you ever drawn any of your friends naked?" Muriel asked.
"People? Yes, many. My friends? Not recently," I replied.
"Well..." she said and we both nodded. "I could wear my bra and panties...?"

So then we listened to "Disturbia" by Rihanna for the fiftieth time in our apartment and talked about how it was probably about the collapse of Capitalism (check out the lyrics) while I began to draw her sitting on my bed. I had just done laundry and all my "hang to dry" clothes were doing just that. I thought this floral dress would be a nice 2nd character in the story because it would bring up a bunch of stuff about femme identity in Muriel's portrait and bring up questions about how she feels being naked and scrutinized by her friend. She has been my most patient sitter so far which I think contributes to the good proportions in this portrait even if the composition is kind of strange. She looks very alert and focused which is also how I feel she is about our friendship.

Here is a picture of the dress, after I had it in my closet overnight. Miraculously its folds were in the same position, I guess since it had dried that way. Maybe Muriel's folds are the same today because she dried that way also.

Portrait #4: Ellary

Ellary was singing soulfully along to Nina Simone while I drew her, practicing for a performance she did Thursday night. She got so into the music that it made her move around a lot. Her palms pressed together in her lap made it look like she was praying. I could tell that it was an out of body experience but that didn't stop me from telling her that she needed to change back to her original position so that I could get the drawing right. Maybe that's why her shoulder is so big in the picture-- she was sinking further and further to her right as she sang with her eyes closed. Next time I draw Ellary hopefully it won't be one of her practice nights.

Portrait #3: Spencer B.

When I drew Spencer, he unknowingly followed a trend in my sitters, by requesting that I don't make his nose and ears too big. He congratulated me afterwards that I satisfied his needs. Personally, I think I made him look like a Backstreet Boy, with the whole bent knee and clean-cut look. Also maybe he fits into this Backstreet Boys video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1KdkQv0FfI

My question for Spencer is why he abstained from the wet t-shirt contest and chest-fondling which comes along with the package.

Portrait #2: Sarah J.

Today I drew Sarah before we went to the gym. Sarah spent her 10-15 minutes looking at the No Doubt CD (Tragic Kingdom) which was sitting on top of the stereo. While I was drawing her she told me about how she and her ex-boyfriend's mom and her shared their looks and interests in common. One example is a talent for writing; Sarah is a brilliant fiction writer, which is such a known fact that her parents heard it through the grapevine. Sarah moved her arms around a lot so I couldn't really correct them, but judging from her position in this picture I think she likes the drawing even though her body is pretty out of proportion. Here is a closeup of the face:


The first time I depicted Sarah 2-dimensionally was in an oil painting in May of 2007. I was doing a painting series about the way that the internet and computers isolates people. My sitter for this particular painting was upset with the way I depicted him (sick and lonely) and about the connotation of the paint color (green). At the time I misunderstood his anger and had nightmares that he would come into the studio at night and destroy it, despite the fact that it was due in a week. I clearly needed a quick solution! So Sarah saved the day (and my conference work) by offering her lovely face. Mostly what I changed about his face is the many little planes on the nose, made his eyelids look thinner, and his lips rounder on the sides. Below is the Martin-Sarah hybrid, in a piece titled "Hybrid" (to play on the organic/geometric//human/machine concept).


Sarah's rating: 4 out of 5

Portrait #1: Hannah M.

This weekend I drew Hannah with a graphite stick. She had a somewhat bored expression in the drawing although she was more expressive since she was talking to Megan and Sarah. Having sat in the round bucket chair, she looks trapped in or disgusted by, our apartment, or maybe her new job as an RA. I accidentally drew her hands too small, but I think their silly quality makes it look like Hannah is unconsciously fiddling with them out of nervousness. Hannah asked me not to draw her to look round and Irish, referencing Brian having asked me not to draw him skinny and Jewish. (I had an easier time following Hannah's request.)

Portrait rating: 4 out of 5