Here's self portrait from either '92 or '93. I an't remember right now. Anyhow, this is Prismacolor pencil on grey matt board. Life size. Lol. I don't look anything like this now.
Thanks. You're too kind. I can't really do this kind of work anymore. My drawing hand hurts too much when I try. Arthritis makes it tough. I still want to work at it though. My alma mater has open life drawing during the school year. They every Sunday for a three hour session. I started going to the sessions last winter and started to get the feel of it again. Sessions start again this Sunday, 09/02. I will be there.
Wow, fantastic. As MamaP said, the light on the shirt and face is really well done. Theres a certain radiance to the picture
Thanks for the comments. First off, let me say that this is a horrible photo of this piece. It is so washed out it's not funny. Second, I apologize for the size. I should reshoot it, but I'm too lazy to go dig it out of it's hiding spot. I actually won a couple awards for this piece, but the drawing itself almost didn't happen. If my wife had been more co operative the day the photo was shot, this picture would not exist. Here's how this came to be. This piece was an assignment for an illustration class. Using Prismacolor pencils, we were to create a self portrait that utilized dramatic lighting. The reason for the self portrait was so we students could have something in our portfolios that would show potential clients that we could capture a likeness. The reason for the lighting was obvious. I chose to shoot my image in front of our old pale blue vertical blinds. I looked at different shirt choices and finally decided on the white because I thought it would offer me the smoothest "terrain" when it came time to rendering wrinkles. Boy! I was so horribly wrong there! It was completely the opposite! After choosing my location and my clothes, I set up my light source - a single 100 watt incandescent bulb on my left. Then I asked my wife to help me with the photography. That's when it got interesting. I asked her if she would take a few photos of me and she sort of snapped back, "Well I'm not making any guarantees about the pictures!" "Fine!" I answered. "I'll do it myself! Thanks for your help!" So pissed as hell, I went back to my spot and set up some pillows where I planned to sit. I set my camera on my tripod, focused it and set the timer. Then I quickly removed the pillows and took my seat. I took a few shots from different viewpoints and after seeing the images, I settled on this one. If you look at it, you can see that deep down I am not a happy man. I was pretty upset with my wife for not helping me, but in the end it worked out for the best because as I said, this piece did quite well. I also have a small oil rub out from that same photo shoot. I will post that sometime too.
WOW! Such a great artist & this has amazing detail I hope you are still using your talent since you did say this was from the 90s
Ever sold your art? I'm always interested in how successful (or not) talented (and not) artists are! This looks like it could get some recognition!
After graduating from college, I sold a few pieces. A couple of them were commissioned portraits, and some were freelance pieces for magazines. Then I wound up contracting Meniere's disease, and it temporarily took away my ability to draw. I had to retrain myself. It was difficult, but I did it. I wasn't the same though because my newly acquired deafness, tinnitus and vertigo changed my spirit. I lost my desire to do any work. Then I found the steel scrap and the welders where I work, and along with them, a new found desire to make art. I have never sold a piece of sculpture. I don't know if anyone would even buy my work because I can't sell most of it. The reason for that is because I get my materials from the dumpsters at work. Their policy is that we can take what we need from the scrap, but if we make anything from it, we can't sell it to anyone. That's okay though. I don't do this for the money (although I wouldn't turn it down). I do it because I feel compelled to. I work too slowly to make any money at it anyhow.
What a marvelous self portrait! I agree with all previous posters on all their comments! You, sir, are a very talented artist. Care to send out pics of your sculptures and other items of art?
How much did you make on the sellings? I need a price for the story to fill its "whoa awesome...!" potential. Would you say you are back or close to back the level you used to be able to output after your college years? Sorry to hear about your deafness and such. Don't let it change your spirit! You can still make art! Good luck.
Anything I ever sold was sold for far less than it was probably worth. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, as an illustrator just breaking into the business, you do yourself a favor by taking just about any job that you can get. Because of that, the little bit of magazine work I did only paid a few hundred dollars per job. Of course, they didn't buy my work outright, they only used my image and sent the work back to me with payment for my services. Had I stuck around a little longer, I may have developed a style of my own, that was quicker to execute than the colored pencil pieces which I did. For an illustrator, time definitely is money. Another reason I never made much money from my work is that I was never brave enough to ask for what it was worth. I painted a couple of portraits for a doctor, a man who most certainly had money. These were decent size paintings too. If I remember, they were 24" x 36" each. I was too afraid to ask what they were worth, so I only charged him $500.00 each for those. If you balance my time and materials against what I was paid, I still made a little money, but I could easily have charged two or three times what I did. I find it funny that as I was writing this, I realized that someone once offered to buy this piece from me. It was a couple from California. Al and Mira (I believe) Rosen were their names. At that time, Al Rosen was the general manager for the San Francisco Giants baseball team. I got a call from Mira one day after she and Al had seen my self portrait in the Society of Illustrators Museum. It was being exhibited there as part of the Society's annual scholarship exhibition. Mira told me how she had seen and AL had seen the work and were very much interested in buying it. She asked about protecting it from the elements, as their house was on the ocean and it opened right up to the ocean air. I explained to her that they would most certainly need to keep it behind glass with or without the ocean air. Then she asked me about a price. I told Mira that I wasn't exactly sure what a fair price would be just off the top of my head. I told her I would give it a day and call her back. After hanging up with Mira, I did some checking and found out who she and Al were. I knew they had some cash to lay out, so I priced this piece according to the time I had in it. At $25.00 an hour, I set a price of $2000.00 for this one. When I called the Rosens the next day and gave them my price, Mira responded by saying that she and Al like to help budding artists by buying their work, but that they were only willing to pay $500.00 for the piece I posted here. There was no way I could let it go for that, but perhaps I should have. After all, they knew people, people with money. It could have been a very good decision to sell it for that, but I just couldn't do it. We can't look back and ask, "what if", but who knows where I would be today if I had sold this piece back the? Who knows?
That's sweet man, lovin' the colours And with the story, at least you've given us a heads up to look out for opportunities like that.
