Portrait Exchange

So, I like “telling.” Typing stuff onto a page is fun.

But, I’ve also wanted to show on this blog for a while now. And Great Gravy: I have now remembered that my computer has a webcam. So allow me to document in grainy glory… the joy of portraiture.

Last Saturday, I was in Zilcher Park in Austin (the same place they hold ACL). My friend Haleigh and I basically walked around and hung out and got into some cool conversations with different  people throughout the day. And while we talked, or at least afterward, I tried to quick-sketch our new friends so that I’d have a record of the experience. It felt appropriate, considering the boho, arty vibe the city gave off. Or maybe that was the humidity.

Anyway, here are some of the new faces we met:

The top two ladies had just got done taking laps in Barton Springs, which is this combination swimming hole/natural source of clean water. Rumor has it that it stays a decent 70 degrees year-round. They told us how they felt swimming in it was spiritual, cleansing… like going to church. Haleigh and I told them we thought that was a cool sentiment, considering the way Jesus relates to water in the Gospels (His baptism, the way He described Himself to the woman at the well, the way He washed His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper).

We also met a guy from Arizona who had met a friend for the weekend and was trying to catch some fish while canoers tried to navigate unturbulent waters only a few feet away. We did not draw any comparisions to the act of being a Fisher of Men (though the thought crossed my mind.)

But I most enjoyed talking with the ladies and boy (on the bottom of the sketch) that we stumbled on after I saw the boy drawing in a sketchpad. This lit up my interest. So we talked about drawing (all three of them were pretty artsy), and I ended up proposing that one of the ladies and I do a quick-sketch portrait of each other and switch.

And we did.

Now, since we exchanged, I can’t show you what I drew (I’m sure it made the gods cry, it was so beautiful). But I got a pretty rad representation of my face out of it:

See? She got me with the shaggy man-mane, AS WELL AS my smattering of east-European facial growth. I mean, it’s pretty close to what I look like these days…

… okay. But not bad for five minutes. I am not complaining.

After all, I heart art.