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From waiting rooms, hats and other headgear
January 2024
I was actually doing quite well health-wise, but in mid-January I was struck by influenza A pneumonia. It was anything but fun, but afterward I was so physically exhausted and my Parkinson's had worsened so much that I was in a wheelchair and sent to rehab. I suspected that it would take a while and looked for something to do. They probably wouldn't accept acrylic paints or clay in the clinic, so I decided to compromise and use digital painting equipment. The iPAD, Apple Pen and Procreate fit well in my bag, but I had no experience at all and had strong reservations. The very first picture I created was "Pneumonia", which in its gloominess matched my mood pretty much exactly.
Over the course of the seven weeks I had time to get to know my new drawing tools a little bit. I was getting better and better and so I spent a lot of time in therapy sessions and almost as much in the waiting rooms. I always had my iPad with me and tried to get to know my software by trying things out. One day a man was sitting opposite me wearing a striking hat. I tried to sketch him, but I didn't succeed because he was soon called. So the idea came about to draw a quick picture during each waiting time showing a man with a hat or other headgear. The waiting times weren't that long though and so I made a lot of 5-10 minute sketches, most of which I quickly deleted. But I liked a few of them so much that I put them together in a waiting room project. Now I'm fit again and the project is (luckily) finished.
I just noticed that I have drawn completely different "images of men" purely by chance - at least that's how it seems to me. The type of son-in-law or dream man who is now successful in his professional and private life and is vegan and understated in a deliberately casual but expensive outfit. The wise man who is removed from the world and who doesn't care about fashion or appearances and has found his inner center. The Barbie type who has just returned from a large animal safari. The lonely drinker who drowns his total lack of success in gin every evening. The eccentric who is completely out of touch with time and the world. The cool one who takes everything that relaxes and is not missing at any party. The macho, cattle farmer, local authority and chairman of every club in the area. The childish one who refuses to grow up and doesn't take himself or the world particularly seriously. The demented old man who tries to keep up the facade. The old man who sits inconspicuously on the bench and feeds pigeons, but in reality has an entire empire firmly in his hands. The old man who, after a grey life, is now living towards the end in grey clothes through equally grey weather.
Addendum Women with Head Coverings
For the sake of fairness, I then tried to paint women with head coverings. And I did it just as quickly and sketchily as the men shown above. But I had to learn that I couldn't do that. Sketching so quickly doesn't do justice to women's faces, at least in my hands. To try to capture the beauty of women's faces at least halfway, I need a lot more time and somehow that seems more important to me. Others can judge whether I succeeded.
