Artfields SC Portrait Competition

Last Saturday April 27, I had the opportunity to take myself on a short road trip over to Lake City, SC to participate in a portrait competition put on by Artfields SC. The competition consisted of 3 hours where artists using a range of media are paired with models and are given one hour to do their best portrait. I showed up with some Bristol board and my trusty Pilot Prera fountain pen and felt woefully unprepared amidst all the easels, tubes of paint, range of brushes that most eveyone brought with them. I'm the type of person that balks at a lot of gear when it comes to doing anything. Sometimes to my detriment. It had also been a while since I had since I had drawn from life. The last time nearly over a decade ago in an actual life drawing class. It's not often that people are willing or able to sit still in one position for a half an hour to an hour and allow someone to draw or paint them.  For one it is a difficult thing to do, and can also be awkward and incredibly intimate for both artist and subject. It creates a real space of presence and vulnerability that can be scary of uncomfortable. So when I signed up for the competition I had one thing in my mind: take what I have developed over the years since graduating and return back to a setting to measure where I truly was at in a setting that was so incredibly similar to stepping back into a life drawing classroom.

You might be asking: "Jason, if you havent been drawing from life, how have you been  practicing and further developing your life drawing and portrait skills?" The simple answer is that I have been using a lot of photographic references. Lately I've gravitated towards a box of old family photos. Over the last several years I have found that drawing in general, and specifically portrait and figure drawing from these very personal sources have been incredibly therapeutic for me mentally. I have practice so much that now I just go straight in with pen and don't do any sort of underdrawing. Without getting to in the weeds I have found a connection between the way we remember events or people or places and the way I judge where to put a line down on paper. It's something I'd like to further develop into a potential exhibit to shop around at a later date.

But back to the point. While these photographic references have definitely been a useful tool in maintaining and furthering my skillset when it comes to figure drawing and portraiture, there is still something missing that is vital to completing that circle that can only be obtained through drawing from life. As I mentioned before, there is a certain amount of presence and intimacy that comes with life drawing that you don't get with a photographic source. Its a connection to the the world around you through the microcosm of this one hyper intimate moment in time.  A certain level of trust and vulnerability opens up where two people are interconnected in an immeasurable way with the only artifact being the finished drawing. On a more technical side, when drawing from a photograph half of the work is already done for the artist. The composition is already decided, the lighting is constant, the models completely unmoving and the work of reducing three dimensions on a two dimensional plane has already been done. When drawing from life it is up to the artist to figure out how to flatten what they are seeing, and what they know is in the round. Deciding how to capture a likeness on a two-dimensional plane and sell that it is a three dimensional object existing in the round. Without that process of observing and synthesizing, there can be no portrait.

Leading up to the competition I ended up practicing doing self-portraits in a couple different mirrors. I'm glad I did because, while I did feel a little unprepared looking at everyone with their gear, I was able to have some confidence in my ability and chosen medium. I ended up advancing to round 2 where I was eliminated. You can check out my self-portrait process in the YouTube video below.