Energy and life

I was looking up other artist's self portraits on the weekend and I came across this one by Sapphire Frater. As she's a living-working artists, as opposed to a dead, mouldering one, I emailed her to ask permission to post this picture and she graciously agreed.
I love it, just love it. It's direct, honest, and it communicates so much about the way she works.
Sapphire mentions Jung and Der Blaue Reiter as some of her influences, which is funny because I was just thinking about synthesism the other day, specifically regarding music and the visual arts. I am a Romanticist in my choice of classical music, and my younger sister has been mailing me CDs to listen to while I'm working. When I'm drawing or painting I admit to not being able to 'hear' the music playing in the background, but it is there, and I'm sure it has an effect, because sometimes I'll take it into my head that the music is all wrong, leap up and change the CD. Something is definitely going on there.

Taking my time

Today I decided to spend some time working on a single drawing, rather than just rushing a couple off. I started with the black brush pen, on a grey pastel paper (you don't really want me to go into the kitchen to get the actual pen & paper brand details for you I hope). I looked and looked in the mirror before setting pen to paper. I was grabbed by the shadow shape cast on my forehead, so I started rendering that first. Things went quite smoothly as I drew the left eye and then the nose. I paused and measured carefully before placing the right eye. Then I picked up three grey shades of brush pens, and started adding in softer shadows.
Now I've stopped to make a cup of coffee and publish this post. When I go back in a minute I think I'll take some more measurements and mark them out in the palest grey before I continue.
At the same time I'm listening to Brahm's German Requiem, as I'm visiting my older sister in Manchester next weekend to take part in a singing day with her choir, St George's Singers. It's quite a solemn piece of music,; it's a Requiem after all. What I mean is that it's not very dynamic. Some Requiems have dramatic crescendos, but this one seems a bit flat. Quite different to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana which we did last year. Hang on, can I hear raised female voices coming from the kitchen? Maybe it's hotted up a bit. I'll post more later today, I'm sure.