This happened accidently, the mixed media part that is. The drawing part was quite intentional. Recently I decided to learn to draw. I always loved drawing as a child (who doesn’t, right?), but gave it up as soon as it turned out I needed to practise for hours in order to develop the skill (I give up easily, unless it’s food).

So, I decided that first I needed a quick boost of confidence and thought that copying a face would be easy enough for a start (that might be completely wrong). But, since I’m afraid that if I start it won’t come out nicely and I’ll quickly give up again, I went for the tracing paper. The mirage of perfection – an almost ideal copy. I chose male faces as they tend to have more visible lines, i.e. are not that bothered about changes to their bodies as females in the entertainment world. I went for actors, musicians, etc, but now I’m moving onto very mature fellow humans. It became my recent obsession – lines around eyes, lines around the mouth, lines on the forehead, lines on the face in general, the passing of time drawn onto our faces. But back to the topic of this blog entry – mixed media.

I copied a few faces onto the tracing paper and as I was passing by our Christmas tree* I tripped slightly while still holding onto the copies. Those couple of seconds of me frantically waving my hands while trying to catch my balance made me realise that the colourful Christmas lights shone through the tracing paper making some interesting shapes that I could play with. And here are the results, pretty neat, right?

*So, yes, the Christmas tree … yes it’s still up. It’s still officially winter, filled with long dark evenings so I need a bit of cheering up. Plus, in Polish Christmas tradition we’re allowed to keep it until 2nd February or as we say it, until ‘Gromnicznej’ [read as: groam-nee-chney]. It’s to do with the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, so yes a Catholic celebration, that comes in handy when you want to keep your tree beyond the 12 days of Christmas.