Tea card portrait

 

Whenever I attempt to draw myself, I am gripped by the existential question, “Who am I?” When I say, “myself” I mean my face, I have no such problem with my hands. It’s a hard question. The answer is more than the inventory, “Two eyes, middling brown; one lumpy nose…” There is obviously the question of character here, of the internal life, or the internal life presumed by others, a rather mercurial thing. Is the question more, “Who am I, right now?”

When I’m in front of a mirror and look, really look at this face opposite me, I’m not wearing an outdoor, public face. It’s my looking face, and I guess that would be quite a disconcerting face to wear when you’re out and about.

This little portrait, and the bigger “Portrait at 4am” are both winter portraits. In the dark, with harsh overhead lighting. My wife doesn’t see “me” in them, but I think there’s enough of the scrutineer here. It’s a look people don’t get to see that often.

This one, I guess because it’s smaller and simpler, is less scary than “4am”. It seems more laid back. Also it’s origin is an evening drawing, so maybe I’m feeling more relaxed. There are a couple of raggedy bits to this one that I’ve decided not to do anything about, because I think it’d change the vibe of the thing.

Around about when lockdown started, Asda stopped embossing their tea bag cartons. Since then I’ve been cutting them up and saving the fronts and backs. So I’m printing these little pictures on the reverse of these bits of card. It’s nice to repurpose things like this, and I can give them to people to remind them where to look.