Heads and Faces

4/27/16 charcoal (10-min. pose)

Today in Bill Evans’ Quick Sketch class, we practiced drawing a model. He gave several 5-minute demos that were especially informative because he described every mark he made, as he made it, and explained what his intention was with each. I am always impressed by instructors who can articulate what they are doing during demos (I can barely mutter my way through casual conversation while I’m drawing).

While I’ve sketched the full figure often enough in life-drawing sessions, I almost never focus only on the head. Today’s lesson included practicing the portrait in five- and 10-minute poses. I enjoyed making these challenging sketches, and I decided I’d try doing more portraits next time I go to life drawing.

Speaking of portraits, Gabi Campanario passed along a very interesting exercise he learned from Gary Faigin during a recent lecture at Gage about portraiture. As practice for life drawing, Faigin recommends drawing heads and faces from imagination – attempting to make them look like actual people, not generic. As soon as I saw Gabi’s imaginary portraits on Facebook and heard about the exercise, I wanted to try it, too. I think my attempts below are OK as far as not looking generic, but some verge on being cartoonish or caricatures. Still, I had so much fun doing these that I’m going to try this exercise more often. 

4/27/16 inks, brush pen (from imagination)