Where the idea came from…
While studying drawing using the Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain method I learnt a lot about the two sides of the brain and how they function in different ways. What made more of an impact was actually seeing it happening while teaching others to draw using this method. I was fascinated by it and am in awe of the power of our brains.
Then, about a year ago, I started doing a series of self-portraits, more as practise than anything else. When I asked my partner, Dave, for his opinion on the likeness I felt I’d achieved the same answer would come back each time – “well, it’s almost you, there’s something not quite right though”. Boy did I get frustrated with this, I could see the likeness myself so just couldn’t get what I was doing wrong. Then one morning whilst standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing my teeth it occurred to me, I was drawing a mirror image of myself. I took a photo of myself and flipped it to replicate the mirror image effect and there was my answer – it was me, but not quite, there was something not quite right – eureka!
Excuse me for getting so excited about something that may seem obvious to you. But this had never occurred to me before. The two sides of my face are different, quite different, so a mirror image of me will never look right to anyone else. And that also explains my embarrassment at seeing myself in photos – I never recognised the person looking out, of course I knew it was me, but there was always something not quite right!
Then something very sad happened, I found a dying butterfly. I took it inside in case it just needed some time to get it’s energy back. While I sat quietly by hoping it would get better I started to notice the fur on it’s body, the scales and patterns on it’s wings, in fact all the minute detail of it, there was a beauty to it that was exquisite. Unfortunately it did die, but it left me so inspired by it’s presence and wondering about it’s symmetry as opposed to our (or at least my) asymmetry.