It was Friday, three days before our next life drawing portrait was due, and neither my friend Thomas nor I had anyone left to draw. Both of our families were either busy or flat out refused to pose for the allotted amount of time. So we put into action our plan C: Draw each other, simultaneously. If Monet and his buddies could do it, after all, why not us?
Firstly, we had to figure out a way to get decent lighting on both of us at the same time. After hauling two spotlights into a free lab, we set them up a ways apart, Thomas’s lighting over his head and to the left, mine over my head and to the right. This provided lighting on our profiles that was not completely flat, but gave us shadows with both crisp and soft edges. We even marked where our lights were and where we would stand on the floor so our poses would remain consistent. It was set up according to my rather “abstract” depiction below.
We both only had a limited amount of time to accomplish these portraits, so we quickly started drawing. However, this is when chaos began to unfold: neither of us could get a decent look at each other because we kept moving at the exact same time. It went from slightly annoying, to genuinely frustrating, and then morphed into just plain humorous. In hindsight we ought to not have set up our easels parallel to each other, but rather at some sort of angle where we would not have to entirely turn our heads to see each other. However, enough time had passed that in terms of drawing we were in far too deep to quit.
Much adjusting of the proportions was done, since Thomas kept changing the angle of his head (understandably, of course, and I’m sure I was doing the same thing,) but thankfully the angle of his shoulder stayed the same. At this point I had been blocking in the values and struggling to get the blending to look smooth, so naturally the correct response was to grab the nearest x-acto knife and chip away at my soft charcoal pencil with barely suppressed rage. This made the lead long enough for me to properly draw with the side of it, and also made me regret not having a spare pencil sharpener. In the midst of shading, I was beginning to see the light (literally, I finally corrected my mistake of making everything a heavy midtone with difficult to erase highlights) when we were presented with another roadblock: we were told that in five minutes, there would be a class held in the lab we were using that wasn’t on the schedule. Our consistent lighting scheme crumbled before our eyes.
So, Thomas and I hauled all of our gear into an entirely different location and attempted to remake our setup, which took a surprisingly long time since we wanted to be sure it was as close as possible. After the trials and tribulations we had thus far faced, we were older and wiser and decided to draw each other one at a time. This, naturally, was easier. Instead of struggling to capture a moving subject, I got to correct any proportional mistakes I made by measuring consistently, and the lighting had a bit more contrast in this room so I added more contrast as well. I noticed his hair was very fluffy and that the light caught it in such a way that it was greatly illuminated, so I used a dark background and a kneaded eraser to exaggerate this effect.
After this, we both had to go to work, so we took pictures and put everything away. Later, for studio time, I attempted to smooth out my blending as best as I could, but in the future I will have to be even more careful to use large swaths of dark values to obtain the contrast I need in as few strokes as possible. I also upped the contrast even further to communicate the lighting from the second lab setup. My very best friends in this process were my kneaded eraser and my soft charcoal pencil.
Overall, this dual portrait attempt was a chaotic but wholly entertaining journey. We had to think quickly and adapt to difficulties outside of our control, and difficulties of which we were the cause. Thomas hasn’t revealed his final portrait of me yet, but from what I saw, I was pretty impressed. While I am generally happy with any improvement I see, I don’t think I fully captured his likeness in this session. Maybe one day I’ll try again when we aren’t turning our heads in synchronization or being tragically evicted from the lab.
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