Facial studies

(C) 2015 Dale DiMauro

This is a portrait I did from a photograph someone else took in one of my wife's alumni magazines, either from Northfield Mount Hermon or Macalester College. These magazines, which arrive in the mail, profile what alumni are working on with rather large photographs of their subject. The above drawing is done with an HB pencil in a wire-bound sketchbook.

The last couple of years I have been working on improving my drawings of 'head shots' or portraits, mostly of people in magazines or of relatives. Lately, I have been drawing hands and feet to get better at those, too. These say so much about a person: their age, gender, environment, and activities. Ultimately, the facial studies will evolve into some sort of paintings, whether just quick studies or finished larger works.

I find capturing an individual's presence or characteristics, of primary importance. However, it is easy to make significant alterations, for example to 'age' someone by making a face more elongated than it actually is. Expressions seem to emanate from the model's eyes and mouth. The accumulation of all the other subtleties such as hair, skin, eye color, shape of nose, etc. seem to synthesize into the mosaic of our being, and are of no lesser importance.