This exercise uses a model as the basis for a self-portrait, helping to unite two ways of image-making — observational and imaginative drawing — and revealing how they support each other.
Steps
Draw the sitter’s pose from observation, making sure to fit their whole body on the page rather than cropping the figure to drawing just, for example, the face.
As you draw them, simultaneously incorporate everything you know and remember about how you look: your body size and shape, face shape, features, hairstyle, the clothes you are wearing today.
Try to integrate your own features right from the beginning, rather than sketching the model first and then superimposing yourself at the end. The idea is for the sitter’s pose to supply the basic anatomical architecture, with your own features providing the specific details that will bring the character – you – to life.
To take this exercise further, create a mini-sequence by making two further drawings of your character standing up from their chair and then walking away.
You could either draw from the model again, or from imagination.
If you enjoy this, your sequence can continue indefinitely — keep drawing your figure, now purely from imagination and memory, and see where you might like to go next. Work intuitively to expand the sequence across multiple pages or frames. You could explore wish-fulfilment, fantasy, the darker sides of your character, or the simple joy of mundane acts. The exercise allows you to take ownership of an observed image, but also to become the author of your self-image and your own story. You become a character that comes to life on the page.
