Faces

I found these rough sketches and small painting of faces buried in a spare bedroom while tidying up. It is always interesting to me how working in different mediums creates different moods and how you can be more articulate in ink say, than in acrylics. At least, this is what I have found to be true for me. Here is the sketch for the above painting.

I would much prefer to do portraits of real people rather than faces purely from my imagination. People can be funny about sitting for you though, and I guess that's reasonable seeing as how the artist must scan the person, drawing out their essence. The scrutiny and the end result is probably quite confronting. Not to mention having to hold a pose for a length of time.

I have made portraits from photographs and while they turned out to be good representations, for me the real person is where the gold is, where you get to transfer their unique vibration to the canvas.