Showing Your Age

7/10/15 ink

I think a lot of sketchers shy away from people as subject matter because they believe that capturing resemblance accurately in the human face is too difficult. Indeed, it’s very challenging, and it’s hard not to think about attempting likeness. I think about it, too, of course, and I’m thrilled when a viewer tells me they see a resemblance in someone I’ve sketched.

My goal when I practice sketching people, though, is to capture not so much a resemblance as posture, mood and that difficult-to-define thing called essence. For lack of a better definition, I’d say that the essence of a person is the thing that makes them an individual and not a generic human. Even basic characteristics like age or race help to make him or her a specific person I saw at a specific time or place – not just anyone.

The other day on my bus ride downtown, this person (at right) sat slightly in front of and to my right, so I got the always-difficult three-quarter view (I don’t know why this view is so much harder than a profile or even a full-frontal face, but it is). Can you identify his age range and race from my sketch? (Answer will appear later in this post.)

7/13/15 inks, colored pencil

It’s been months since I’ve done any life drawing or even coffee-shop sketching; this morning at Zoka Coffee, I felt rusty. With my first sketch of two young women deep in conversation (at left), I attempted to capture their postures and body language without thinking much about resemblance, though I’d be pleased if you can at least tell they are young.

In the sketches below, the man sketched alone (and doing something strange with his thumb) is the same man as the one on the left playing go with the guy in the baseball cap. In the first sketch, I got his age all wrong: he looks a lot younger than he really is. Later when he put on glasses, it helped a little, but I think I got his hairline more accurately, so he looks closer to his actual age. Again, I doubt his wife would recognize him. J But I’m happy if I get the age of a person in the right range.

7/13/15 ink

7/13/15 ink

How about this last sketch of the morning – the man and woman in stuffed chairs (below)? The bald guy is kind of a giveaway, huh? J

7/13/15 inks, colored pencil

Here’s the answer about the man on the bus: He was in his 30s and Asian. How’d I do?