PORTRAIT DRAWINGS

Here are a few portrait drawings from my collection that I have done from life.  Of all the challenges I faced during my art education, this is one I felt responsible for getting right every time I sat to draw, for me and for the sitter.  The portrait is an important part of learning our craft, capturing a likeness.  It helps an artist understand that they can record what they see with clarity and understanding of the subject matter both technically as well as emotionally.

Drawing a portrait has a strange intellectual duality to it that I also find fascinating when looking at other artist’s portrait drawings and paintings.   Each face we draw is capturing or, immortalizing the sitter, along with our thoughts, errors, edits, and efforts about the experience(Drawing), and who the sitter is.  I think about this a lot while making each of my drawings.  Because of this, it is important for me to take mindful steps with each image I create.

It is really fun designing the individual characteristics and I love the challenge of articulating the diversity of all walks of life.  I enjoy the challenge of portraying just the right characteristics to help individualize each and every face I draw.  In a way, the lay-in of a drawing is like a math problem and the rendering is an essay, and my actions the performance between these two concepts.

Bawhb  –  Media:  Graphite

Profile  –  Media:  Graphite on Plate Paper