Self Portrait in Furniture Shop

Recently, a new furniture shop replaced the old one on Sunset and Alvarado in Echo Park.  My visit there was eerie and enjoyable.  Heavy wooden doors and their frames lined the middle of the room.  I had access to both their sides with no need to open them.  Prayer benches hovered over the floor.  Planters from mansions that probably once hosted fancy dinner parties sat mostly empty along the walls, there was still some dirt lining their ridges.  There was also art.  Exorbitantly priced nautical paintings jigsaw-ed their way up toward the ceiling.  I actually found a print of a painting I have in my room (I saved mine from the garbage four years ago): a ship with large white sails rides over turbulent and dark blue waves.  Upstairs there were mostly light fixtures, tapestries and mirrors.  Like I said, the store was new when I visited it, so I don’t know if they planned to hang the lights or just keep them on the floor, where they were when I found them.  One day, I’d like to choose some of the furniture in that store and keep it as my own, so I can look at it every day.  Each piece holds history and implies stories.

I’m getting sentimental.

I like old stuff.

I like new stuff too.

Anyway, I’ll talk about my art:

This one might be the most successful.  I explain more below.

I like this version of the drawing because the distinction between the digital art and the photography is clear without being too jarring.  I wonder if the photo overshadows the details of the background.

The drawing below is the same as the one above, except I did not fade the photo in the mirror.

I initially wanted to draw everything except for the background in the mirror, but I found it difficult to draw myself without turning my face and features into surreal shapes.  People have commented on the fact that I draw myself older or uglier.  I personally like how weird it can look.

This is the same image as above, but I just faded the photo, again.

I don’t show the photo at all in the drawing below.  The self-portrait is my initial drawing of myself (which is more robotic than the later version, above).

No Lorna or photo in the drawing below.

Per usual, I want to include my line drawing in this post.  This one would be great to add to my next coloring book.

I also want to include the original photo in this post.  I don’t want to mystify my art and claim that it’s not dependent on the shapes I find in source material.