Copied my old face drawing after ten years and saw the whole arc
Found a scan from 2014 today, first pastel portrait I ever attempted. Same subject, same reference photo I keep coming back to because I'm stubborn. Put mine from last week next to it.
The old one is so bad. I remember being proud of it when I finished. I remember thinking this is it, this is what I can do. And ten years later I can see every single thing wrong with it and I still kept trying the same face over and over until it finally came close to what I saw in my head.
I think the win is not the new one. The win is that I didn't stop in 2015 when I should have, or 2018, or honestly last January when I nearly quit pastel for good. Nobody told me to keep going, I had to decide it myself, weeks at a time. And it worked out in a way I couldn't see from inside the bad years.
Anyway. Old me would be so confused that the face in the picture is the same and everything else is different. 🙃
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This is the thing nobody tells you about drawing the same subject for years. People think it's obsession, but it's actually the only honest way to measure yourself. Same face, same photo, and suddenly the gap between what you made and what you saw isn't the subject's fault anymore. It's yours. And that's when you can actually close it.
I did the same with a self-portrait, about fifteen years apart. The old one I kept because I couldn't bear to throw it away, and then one day I put it next to the new one and I could see exactly where I'd stopped lying to myself about edges. The win isn't the new painting. It's that you kept the old one at all.
And for what it's worth, pastel is unforgiving. Coming back to it for ten years says more than the result does.
Yeah, exactly. People do ask if I'm obsessed with this one face and I never know how to explain it's not that. It's the only fair comparison I get, same everything except the ten years. And you're right, once you can't blame the subject anymore you have to actually look at yourself.
"Where I'd stopped lying to myself about edges", that got me. That's exactly it. The old one I see now, I was faking edges with outlines because I didn't trust myself to land them softly. I'd love to see your two self-portraits side by side sometime if you ever post them. That honesty part, it's brutal but it's also kind of the whole point.