one a week
First week done. Our main teacher is Pia. She's about sixty, has a grey braid down to her waist, and hums when she likes something. You learn to listen for the hum.
The big assignment for the year: one self-portrait every week until May. A3, pencil or charcoal, from a mirror. Not from your phone. "I can always tell," Pia said, and I believe her.
So on Thursday evening I did #1 at the hall mirror. Two hours, Hedda's kitchen chair, the light from the ceiling lamp. It looks like a sulky horse. Pia hummed a little anyway.
Fun fact I learned this week: the face you see in the mirror is flipped, and the face everyone else sees is the one in photos. That's why you hate photos of yourself. You've spent your whole life looking at the mirror version.
My parting is on my left. In the drawing it's on the left of the paper, because mirror. In every photo of me it's on the right. So technically I'm going to spend a year drawing a girl nobody else has ever seen.