The final project for my life drawing class was also a full body self portrait.  For this project, I challenged myself to do the opposite of my midterm (read about that project here).  My midterm was in a relatively high key (featuring predominately white/light gray tones), no crosshatching, and showed me (in an open pose) as a glamorous figure.  Therefore I wanted this project to be mostly dark with a lot of hatching, featuring myself (in a closed pose) as a weird cave-like creature (who values personal hygiene).

The midterm was absurdly welcoming, almost like an advertisement.  My goal for this final was to make the viewer feel uneasy, like an intruder.  I think I achieved this.  My classmates had eagerly discussed my midterm, but it took the class a while to warm up to this one enough to talk about it.  One student remarked that it looked “cinematic”, and I’ll never forget the soft horror in the instructor’s voice when he said “Are you…trimming your toenails?”

I had a lot of fun with this project, and my only frustration was the damage the charcoal took on the commute to and from school.