This was interesting because - while I donât claim to be much of an artist - I have a party trick of portraiture, as in capture-a-likeness-to-please people-in-a-pub-knack, which is a whole separate skill. And the face intrigued me.
For portraiture you have the unique challenge of capturing the distinctive features while flattering them. Thereâs a tension of âwhat makes the person look like themselves?â against what they WANT people to see.
Acknowledging and respecting that, reflecting a View of the Self instead of a simple photograph, has always been an ephemeral and noble challenge of portraiture. Itâs a rare skill, and while Iâm not claiming to be a brilliant practitioner, hereâs how I go about it. You want the person to feel SEEN - on a level and in a way that only a portrait artist could.
If someone in a novel were to spend a paragraph studying the portrait, they ought to be able to say something plot-relevant, like âthe artist had faithfully captured the FAMILY RESEMBLANCE in the notable features and the PLOT POINT in the shape of her eyes⊠but no photograph could have captured the wistful turn of the mouth. Across a hundred years of distance, her soul was clear, speaking to Protagonist as if she were merely in another roomâŠâ
Thatâs the skill of portraiture, really, and itâs rarer than the ability to do good lineart (which I canât do either; note that Iâm not claiming to be GOOD.)
The immediate outstanding features of the âfanâ are
Dark, hooded, distinctive eyes - sheâs probably proud of them
Challenging, knowing expression
Long dark hair is a feature sheâs proud of; because itâs well-cultivated
A sweet beauty of youth, but I can see what sheâll look like when sheâs older
Roman nose thatâs unusually short for the bridge type. Doesnât have the space to be âhookedâ but has the shape.
Natural brow with natural arch - fuzzing in to a shapely tapered form
Rounded face but with an interesting composition of flat slabby cheekbones and a high flat forehead. Iâd love to look at it from other angles but she could model for a LOT of time periods and a LOT of artistic traditions.
Cool olive skin - very tricky!!! Especially with that pink lip. Frankly beyond me to depict fairly tbh⊠but at least I tried
Dark pigmented undereye and eyelid, which I chose to handle in the sense of âflattering eye makeupârather than true depiction of her colouring.
Full mouth with NO CUPIDâS BOW - fullness in lower lip
Iâd elide the faint double chin out of gracious recognition of the angle and acknowledgement of the fact that the sitter would PROBABLY prefer it not to be noticed. I ultimately alluded to it, but elided it.
Even without the double chin, her determined yet rounded chin is another charming and forceful contradiction that lends what we call âcharacterâ to the face
Presumably a fan of Instagram anime art is familiar with conventions and is therefore hoping for a portrait with glow brushes and SHEEN and TEXTURE and anime petals and veils barfed all over it - so I did a final version with those things - presuming it would make the âcustomerâ happy
Obviously you can see that Iâm quite humbly and realistically not an ARTIST but I thought it was interesting to contrast what skills are valued in a party trick of portraiture (breaking down and flattering features, playing a delicate game of flattery/pleasure and clear-eyed recognisability) vs a much more skilled and stylish render that is based on replicating anime aesthetics and thus - despite being better which I acknowledge! - didnât engage so much with the goals of portraiture. Returning to the goals of portraiture - likeness, gesture, expression, picking out features, affection for the subject - is so,so good for the soul. For one thing, it reminds you of your ability to fall in love with facesâŠ
But as you can tell, you donât have to take my word for it! Draw a person lovingly today!
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