Self Portraits
Text Box: I have always loved New Yorker cartoons. When I was a teenager I would buy the magazine every week and read it on the subway going to high school. The Chapter 13 backstory at www.borrellcompany.com/neilink/history/13/index.htm tells my New Yorker saga. The saga ends with my finally selling them a drawing only to find out two years later that it wasn’t the drawing I thought I sold them and my signature was way too small to read. I have a sketch book from the sixties which includes the drawings below done mostly as studies from New Yorker cartoons. There are, however, a few original sketches which are self portraits. I’ve pulled out the ones that I’m sure are of me and a few that are probably self portraits. There’s one that looks like my father but I don’t remember specifically drawing him. This was an attempt at learning how to draw people from life. I don’t think that, at that time, I had enough confidence to ask someone to sit for me. When I directed TV news I would attend the afternoon news meeting every day. Since I was on the production side I found these editorial meetings could be tedious. For a couple of years I passed the time doodling sketches on the preliminary rundown. Sometimes scenes but sometimes the faces of the other people at the meeting. They were pretty good and I don’t know why I didn’t save any of them. These drawings are from the old sketchbook.

All material copyright 2009 Neil Borrell

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Text Box: Email neil@borrellcompany.com