Tuesday 18 August 2015

Selfies from the Eighties

I was angst ridden as a teenager. Very keen on dead pop stars, Edgar Allan Poe and horror portmanteau films like Dead of Night and From Beyond the Grave. I still have similar tastes, but have lightened up considerably since then. Accompanying my gloomy self-portraits from my adolescence is a gloomy self-portrait in poetic form called 'Not a Very Pretty Sight'.




Not a Very Pretty Sight by Lorna Wadge

Someone looks out through the bathroom steam
There is a strange reassurance, things are not all they seem
Fingernails squeeze her skin curiously
In a desperate attempt to cure the acne
She can hardly see through an overgrown fringe
As she reaches for the baby soap and starts to cringe

I have heard about reflections
They make you look pretty by distorting the view
Just shows how many people gaze at themselves
Haven't they anything better to do

She looks slightly sallow and painfully thin
What a terrible state to get herself in
Her hair is reminiscent of a sad drowned rat
She wonders what she is looking at
Who could she possible be today?
When all teenagers are infamous anyway

She looks so ill, so unhealthily pale
It is not so attractive being young and female
Her eyes are anxious, dull and brown
They are looking at life when it is upside down

She dislikes herself from her head to her toes
And she is paranoid about her nose
How could anyone live with something like that?
She is wetter than the bathroom mat
Her mouth is dry, her thin lips are cracked
you can see the signs of a blues attack.

Freckles hide phobias, adolescence hides the smiles
Damp hides the scratches on the bathroom tiles
She looks rather tired, she knows it is all in vain
When I look in the mirror I will see her again


Wednesday 5 August 2015

Boy Toys with Manly Virtues


After drawing my three virtuous girls with blonde, brown and auburn hair, I thought I would do a complementary project for the boys. Of course virtues are for everyone, but I did a little research and came up with three 'manly' virtues that were also contemporary boys names; Loyal, Valliant and Earnest. I made the boy dolls before I worked on the pictures which are inspired by three contempoarary heroes; Jacob from Twilight, Ron from Harry Potter and Peeta from The Hunger Games.