Portrait #40: Anna

Anna's hair was quite nice to draw since I like to space out at it in our Sixties history class. It's so shiny and straight that her bangs sit sort of like Cleopatra when she's not wearing a ponytail.

For example,

, and,

I imagine that Anna's critique of these pictures might be about the racialization of "Cleopatra" as white and therefore, indicative of white supremacy's hegemony in Hollywood and consumer culture. (However, perhaps I am conflating her analysis with another student in our class named Daisy (drawing pending) who is researching the history of beauty products in the black community.) This is my guess since a lot of what we talk about in class is the Black Liberation Movement and Anna always has thoughtful things to say about the different stages of the BLM (e.g. development of self defense politics in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee). Sometimes in class Anna and I talk about having both worked with an organization that trains youth to do organizing around peace and nonviolence, and then questioned that framework thereafter.

Also sometimes we complain about what some like to call "manarchism". Also sometimes we discuss what kinds of eyeliner we like to use in order to get that perfect point on the end.

During our sketching sesh, I had the pleasure of chilling out with Anna and about 6 other folks and did lots of chitchatting. This is a good example of how Sketchy Lady can be a really nice way to do homework as a distraction from my other homework. This was one of the larger groups that I have Sketchy Ladied in, but out of the big groups, I felt the least amount of pressure in it. I think I somehow made Anna look way more Jewish than she is, but I think I captured her relaxed posture accurately. Some portraits that I've done don't accurately capture all the deetz of a person's image but sometimes the most important thing is the way that large forms relate to each other. Thanks for teaching me this important lesson, Anna.