Self Portraits and Contour Lines

Continuous Line meets Contour Line meets
Wire Style Drawing

journal sketch by Carmen Beecher

It was my turn to lead a challenge with my weekly painting gang.  The moans were deafening when I announced "self portraits" and got even louder when I continued "...in wire-like, continuous line drawings with an emphasis on the contour."  But I passed out practice paper and we all got to howling with our first attempts, believe me, for a group discount we would have marched directly to the plastic surgeons office!

I assured the fine ladies that a likeness was not required..."interesting line" was.  Slowly they began to get a bit more adventurous in the drawings and not whine so much about the wrinkles we have been blessed with.  The idea is that once you place your pen on the paper you do not pick it up again until you are finished...thus: drawing with one long,continuous line.  Another way to imagine it is to sculpt the image as if you had one endless piece of wire.  It's a very challenge exercise.

l to r: Carmen Beecher, Carol Schiff, Mary Warnick, (below)

Kathy Garvey, Donna Vines 

MIA: Dennette Schweikert and Fay Picardi

I have learned that I can teach OR produce OR photograph the event...but rarely all three at the same time.  So my final photos are missing the end products of all 6 of us.  Here's a sample however:

l to r top: Cindy practice, Carol,

Carmen, Cindy

I love doing these, the charm of certain elements give them a Picasso-esque flavor while the eye and hand have to really work on capturing shape.  Hopefully we will all continue to work on other subjects with this same technique.

Continuously Yours,

Cindy