Big Head (in ink)

I started trying to keep a daily sketch book last year. It hasn't worked. I just can't put something in there every day. But it's starting to form a habit. I find that when I draw daily I draw better. I have better ideas and better technique and some cool ideas. I realize, too, that a great deal of the things that I've been drawing are, in some form or another, self-portraits. I realize, too, that a self-portrait doesn't have to look anything like Self. The following is an example of a mental self-portrait, a sort of drawing of my mental state at the time.


At the time, I was on medication for depression. And the medication was waaaay too strong. My brain wasn't firing on all cylinders, nor were they firing in time. I felt completely spaced, on top of the crippling depression. The huge head, looking a bit like a depressed balloon with vacant eyes, floating up and away towards the uknown, atop a pretty drab background. Sickly skin wrapped in dark colors. That was my mind in mid-May, 2007 (and for a little while after, too). It doesn't really look like me. (see?) The drawing is certainly missing all the characteristics that I generally incorporate into self-portraits: beard, bald-cap, cigarette (though that's not a constant anyway, but a cigarette in a holder is a dead give-a-way for a self portrait). But that is clearly me. If I completely forget about this piece and see it again in 15 years, I'll still see me in it. I have no idea what the big hands are about. I was probably looking at some work by Sam Flores at that time.

This went just past a sketch into a "finished image" because I wanted to try out some new pen nibs and brushes that I got for working with ink and this was the excuse to do it. I'm really pleased with this image. I think it's a pretty solid image, one I'll still be proud of in the future. I can see this being a sort of inspiration, a "Look what I'm capable of" kind of thing. Even though it's all about that horrible depression and the hell of a time I had getting through it, this image makes me feel good.