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.
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