Art post
I pretty much never draw from television or film because, as visual mediums, they entail creating a likeness of an actual real person and I am hands-up useless at that. I drew the Silva picture a while back but that did not count because his eyes were concealed, and eyes are half the battle. It's frustrating for me because I'd love to give it a go more often but can't, because I lack so completely in both confidence and, yes, skill, to do it.
So let's call this progress. It's not a brilliant likeness, and I can see the mistakes I made as clear as day, but when my boyfriend came in yesterday evening and spied it on the kitchen table he gave a contemptuous laugh and shouted through to the living room, 'Why have you been drawing Benedict Cumberbatch?'
It's not Benedict Cumberbatch, it's Sherlock, though I suppose Sherlock has Benedict Cumberbatch's face. I'm kind of proud of the challenge I presented myself here: not only was I drawing a likeness, but a likeness of a man whose face is so singular that you can't just fob it off. It's a face I love dearly, toeing the line between beauty and sheer fuck-ugliness as it does.
As almost pleased with the finished drawing as I was I'm less pleased with the inking, which is marred by my inability to keep myself from messing with things that are just fine as they are. I nearly ballsed up the line-art the same away, and the colour was a bridge too far for my restless hands. And then at the end I dropped the paintbrush on it. Inks can't be fixed, so I just had to make do with frantic applications of toilet roll and self-loathing in what was a fruitless effort to save it. Bloody idiot.