Getting personal

How do others see you? Indeed, how do you see yourself? You only ever see yourself in reverse, reflected in a mirror. So if, like me, you part your hair on the right, you only see it parted on the left, in the morror, unless of course you are looking at a photograph or video. Anyway, in the mid- to late-1990s I seemed to get it into my head to draw myself a few times. This is the result.

So the drawing shows a left-handed oke, with his hair parted on the left. Can't be me. Makes you wonder which ear Van Gogh cut off ...

The longer you check yourself out while drawing yourself, the more critical your pen seems to become.

This oke now seems totally disillusioned with himself.

Ah, at last something else to draw. Again, stuck at home with small kids, I turned to an indoor pot plant in front of our rather ornate, non-functioning fireplace.

This is reminiscent of some of the composite drawings I did while in the media centre at 1 Intelligence Unit, Kimberley, during my conscripted years in the late 1970s, early 1980s. The young lad at the top is probably older son Luke, while the shapes below are details of two carvings I did - the one on the left in the early 1980s and the other around 1977. Both are from chunks of driftwood found on the Bonza Bay beach. Note the gap in the elongated neck of one of the two figures on the right.