A Self-Portrait in Oils
As someone hoping to have portraits commissioned, there is a hurdle I have to drag*. I need to look in real detail at someone who will stay still without being paid for it. I have to draw me, so that I understand me. A friend of mine recently completed a series of fifty self-portraits. Her knowledge and understanding of the facial form improved dramatically, she said. I believe her. To look at a person is to take a huge number of short cuts. A smiley face is to a human being recognisable as representing a person. That makes it difficult to draw what you really see. One way to deal with that is shown below: The face, upside-down, is startling. We are not used to being forced to see what we might normally assume or overlook; the eyes have puffiness in the wrong place, the lips curve oddly, and we actually notice the nose. It is a good way of removing the habitual ‘oh, that’s an eye’ method of thinking, and getting the brain to process areas of dark and light instead. This picture was taken lying down, looking up at the camera. As a consequence, the masses of the face are not where you might expect them.
This line picture has hatching in darker areas, which gives the face a startling look. It functions as a tool for an artist exploring how a face’s contours work, and is not designed to be pleasing. Comparing the two pictures we can see both have a delicate bridge to the nose, the same lips, and eyes that have slightly fleshy lids. The eyebrows fade towards the outside, after peaking; the overall look is elfin in one picture, Vulcan in another. The difference in viewpoints brings out the high cheekbones in the line art, and the softness of slack muscle in the tonal piece. Finally, here is the piece from which I will likely produce one in a short series of self-portraits:
Pedantry: *A hurdle can be a temporary fence or the sledge on which someone is taken to execution. Silly language, anyhow. |