Self- Portrait Challenge- Black and White In A Room In Portland

Last week, my good friend Ari sent me a few drawings he had drawn that he was excited about. He had sketched very simple representations of his surroundings and scribed, in a childlike cursive script, lines like- This has already been experienced for you and crying is exercise. They reminded me of pictures famous people draw once they have made their name in other fields, like Bukowski’s watercolors or something one would find in a Picasso sketchbook. I am not saying that my friend is Picasso, just that his basic depictions of his everyday surroundings made an impression on me.

I am not sure if everyone does this, but I immediately put myself, symbolically at first, into each of his images. I asked myself what would my role be in these spaces? How would I look if I were in these rooms? What emotions would I convey? So I decided to do more that just imagine; I decided to actually put myself into each one of the rooms. Here is my Self-Portrait for this week. Black and White in a Room in Portland:

While I was doing the legwork for this part of the project, I started to see how much what I was doing was like animation. I had taken shots of several the poses in the “room.” So I decided to put them together with iMovie. This first prototype is a bit unsophisticated, but it is a springboard for future ideas. I thought about perhaps using Ari’s drawings as sets. Sets onto which I could add photographic characters, reading lines of dialogue, monologue, poetry etc… I want to try and create what I am calling animated talking comics, or very slow motion animated films, where the background or sets are drawn, but the characters are photographs, or vice versa. I will keep you posted. Stay tuned for the next piece; they will be filed under Lost In Drawings. I would love for others to send me background drawings as well. You can find my email on my profile. As always please let the entire clip load before viewing. Enjoy.

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