Category: Project 3

The characteristic I chose for my drawing was my animal-loving side. On my birthday last month, my friends and I went to Sea Cider in Saanich. I was sitting and enjoying my drink when my sister suddenly yelled, “Erin, you have a frog on your head!” I looked in the reflection of my phone, and sure enough, there it was. I was so excited because in my free time, I often spend hours looking for snakes, frogs, and lizards to catch and release, but this time, I didn’t have to do anything to find one. I gently picked him up, and he sat with us for quite a while before hopping away. It felt like the universe knew it was my birthday and sent me a little frog friend as a gift. Before he left, my sister snapped a photo of me giving him a little kiss, and I decided that photo would be perfect for my portrait since my love for animals is one of my favorite characteristics about myself.

One of the most challenging parts of this project was stopping myself from getting too frustrated when I couldn’t get every detail of my face perfect, especially my nose. I reminded myself that my real face isn’t perfect (nobody’s is) and that it was okay if my drawing wasn’t either. I also found it difficult to work on such a large scale, especially with shading. I don’t have much patience for shading because I want it to look good right away, but through my rough draft I realized it’s something that needs to be built up slowly. On a bigger portrait, it took even more patience.

Something I did feel really proud of was my eyes. I have a unique eye shape, and they’re a little different from each other. They’re also hooded, but not in the same way most people’s are. I think I did a great job showing the shape and creases of my eyes, and that part of the drawing felt like a real success.

What I appreciate most about both Anita Taylor and Wangechi Mutu’s is their feminist perspective on self-portraits. Wangechi Mutu’s Intersectional approach made me reflect on my own identity as a white woman living on stolen Indigenous lands. It reminded me of the privilege I carry and the responsibility that comes with it, to acknowledge the history of the land I’m on, to question the systems that benefit me, and to be mindful of how I represent myself and others in my work. What I like about Anita Taylor is how she talks about her work being about “looking” and “not looking” at oneself, one’s place in time, one’s history, and one’s present, and thinking about it in a collective context. For me, that idea really helped in my drawing. It took away some of the pressure to copy my face exactly, because I could also draw from the perspective of when I wasn’t looking and how I see myself in moments when I’m not focused on my reflection.