This past week, I attended a tech conference called MWLUG in Atlanta. (It stands for MidWest Lotus Users Group, but has spread beyond the Midwest and the products are no longer known as Lotus, but oh well.) While I was there, a couple I know described their visit to Japan, and how the Japanese don't really have a tipping culture, but believe in giving small meaningful gifts to show appreciation and respect.
With that in mind, I wanted to thank Richard Moy who put together the conference and Lisa Duke who was local liaison and made the Atlanta arrangements. They both did a fabulous job, and while my sketches are still amateur, I mean them as tokens of respect. These were both purely digital, done with a mouse and Gimp. (I really need to get myself a drawing tablet or something.)
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| Lisa Duke |
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| Richard Moy |
Our last week of this art class, and I spent part of it drawing the woman who was sitting across from me, and the other half on a self portrait. I'm getting better at this, though I still have a long way to go. I feel pretty good about the drawings as drawings, but still wish they were more... recognizable.
While our instructor encouraged us to draw the person across from us, the woman I drew was having none of that. Fortunately, I'd brought my phone so I convinced her to look up long enough that I could take a picture and work from that, adjusting it some based on how she really looked (which the photo doesn't quite capture due to angle and lighting).
She claims that she wasn't scowling at me, but I think she really wished I would go away so she could work on her self portrait. Ah well. That old Langhinrichs charm, I suppose.
Anyway, on to the self portrait. I took a selfie and worked some from that and some from the mirror. As it happens, I took a couple of intermediate shots, so I'll share them in the order I did them.
And my final product, which I quite like even if it doesn't really look like me to me. I'm still seeking that something that makes me look like me.
For the truly curious, here are the two photo references I used:
