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| Portrait of a little girl in a hat (detail) by Ciana Pullen. Charcoal, drawn from life, 2012. Image: head and shoulders of a 6-year-old-ish Hispanic girl wearing a hat looks up at the viewer. She's lit from the side which creates graphic shadows on her clothes. Drawn in realistic black & white charcoal.] |
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| My charcoal copy of Sargent's Henry James. His left eye is too close to the center, head too close to the top of the page because I always draw the head comfortably close to the top and then need to go bigger once the rest of the face develops. Oh well, that's what happens when you sketch in public and foolishly don't step back to look at the drawing from far away. But I do like the shadows on his jowls and the bulbous part of his forehead. |
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| Henry James by John Singer Sargent, 1913. [Image: realistic formal oil painting of a portly, oldish balding white man wearing a black suit jacket, black pin-striped vest, black bow tie and Gladstone collar. He leans back and looks slightly down at the viewer with a well-worn skeptical expression, his thumb hooked confidently into his vest pocket. The figure forms a blackish pyramid in front of a shadowy brown background, the only points of light being the hand, face and collar, lit with soft natural light from the top right.] |
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| Henry James by John Singer Sargent; what is, I assume, a preparatory sketch for the painting. [Image is a charcoal sketch exactly the same as the painting but with James facing the other direction and his lower torso cropped out.] |
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| A photo of the actual Henry James around a decade before Sargent's portrait. |
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| My charcoal copy of Sargent's Rodin. His torso is cropped below the neck and his beard disintegrates into loose hatch-marks. Blank background. The face is too wide, nose crooked and too short, mouth too high up, ear too small, eyes not in line with each other, hair too round and helmety instead of floppy, sideburns too far back and not enough depth on the middle-grey shadows so his face looks oddly porky. I also needed to raise the shadow between his eyes so he doesn't look so cartoonishly angry. It sounds silly but I wonder if the proportions are so distorted in these partially because I held the book on my lap and thus saw an image skewed by perspective. I also tend to draw people with too-short chins because my own chin is short and I think artists tend to learn from their own features. Other things-- too large eyes, too large irises and pupils that make people look like they're on ecstasy, too large heads, too big hair-- are probably influenced by cartooning, which is itself influenced by the psychological importance people place on these features resulting in portraying them as physically larger than they should be. Anyhow, I liked how the beard turned out, especially since it reminds me of Rodin's sculpting style. |
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| Aguste Rodin by John Singer Sargent. [Image is a loose oil portrait of a middle aged white man with brown hair and a long bushy brown beard and mustache wearing a black utilitarian coat. He leans back into the frame as he looks at the viewer, appearing to be caught in the middle of a task. Though he looks at the viewer he appears distracted. The painting is dark, his face the only point of light in the top-middle of the canvas. The brushstrokes are looser in this painting than the others.] |
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| My charcoal copy of Sargent's Mrs. Edward D. Boyt (Mary Louisa Cushing). Her face is too short, her neck too thick, her nose too short, right eye too far out, and hair too flat on top or wide on the side. People kept asking if it was a portrait of Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show. Image is the same as the painting described below but in black & white with a blank background, cropped at her chest. |
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| Aunt Bee and Barney Fife. |
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| Mrs. Edward D. Boyt (Mary Louisa Cushing) by John Singer Sargent. [Image: A formal oil painting of a middle aged white woman sitting on a fancy settee with her fingers interlaced and one elbow on the armrest. She wears a gown with a black v-neck bodice and elbow-length sleeves, a skirt made of pale pink satin with a black net overlay with black polka-dots and some sort of tall pink hat or feather. The background is black and the ochre settee is shadowy, the lightest points being the face and feather and arms, followed by the light-ish skirt, creating a pinkish fleshy swoop from a thin feather point at the top middle-right to the thick hem of her skirt at the bottom left, which is intersected by the warm brown of the couch which goes from middle-left to lower right, creating a warm/cool X shape against black.] |
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| Another portrait for a client so I'm only showing a detail [Image: cropped close-up of ayoung white boy's face, smiling. Realistic black & white charcoal.] |
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| Just a detail of the portrait since it's for a client. Drawn from life. [image: close-up crop of young white man's face, smiling, wearing a cap, like the military kind with a bill that old-timey Russian poets and coffee house kids wear. Not exactly a newsboy cap but similar. Also less ridiculous and more stylish than I make it sound. black & white charcoal, realistic.] |
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| Just a portion of the portrait since it's for a client. She sat (extreeeemely patiently) while I drew this. [image: cropped close-up of a white teen girl's face smiling slightly. Realistic black & white charcoal.] |
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| Self portrait in bathroom mirror before getting ready for bed. I look psycho on this, or as an artist I guess I should say, "tortured." Really though I look this way in most of my self portraits because I'm glancing up from my drawing pad at the mirror. The direct overhead lighting isn't helping things either. Still I think the drawing goes well with the video below. [Image: head and neck of a white woman with head tilted down looking directly up at viewer. Contour line drawing in blue and orange marker, somewhat unrealistic.] |
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| Another portrait for a client, so I'm only posting a portion of it. [image: detail of the side of a white man's face who wears glasses and is smiling. Realistic black & white charcoal.] |
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| Since it's for a client I'm only showing a portion of the portrait. [Image: the face and neck of a white woman with thick pale hair and glasses drawn in realistic charcoal.] |
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| Since this was for a client I'm only posting part of the portrait. This woman sat for me at the first Farmer's Market of the year (hooray! I love drawing from life!). [Image: shoulders up to forehead of a white woman with long blond hair wearing earrings and a bunched up draped neck scarf. Drawn in black & white charcoal, realistic with sketchier lines for the scarf.] |
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| This portrait is for a client so I'm only posting a detail. [Image: realistic black & white charcoal drawing of a dog showing only its eyes and pointed, perky ears]. |
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| Yo Yo Guy. I saw this man in the park messing with a yo yo. He's a red-head so the amazing hair and mustache you see were bright pale orange. I considered asking him if I could draw his portrait but as usual I was chicken-shit, so I sat a few benches down and he immediately prepared to leave. I got a good look at him before he scooter-ed off and this is him, to the best of my recollection, finished with his yo-yo-ing business and pausing to squint into the sunset before revving the scooter engine. [Image: head and neck of a white man with curly hair and large handlebar mustache wearing glasses and squinting into the distance, lit from the side. He's drawn in black & white charcoal, realistic.] |
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| Husband driving at night. This was drawn in the dark in a moving vehicle. [Image: pen drawing, mostly contour, of the head ad shoulders of a man driving in profile on the left half of the page; on the right side is the steering wheel and dash board.] |
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| My friend's cat, Jazz. Drawn while he was 'hunting.' [image: black & white pen drawing of the head and shoulders of a crouching cat sniffing a toy mouse. Somewhat realistic, thin dense lines.] |
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| Jean Dujardin as OSS 117, drawn while watching OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. I'm a little disappointed with this one. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of man showing his thighs upward, wearing a 1960's suit and tie and smoking. He has one hand in his pocket and turns to look back over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised. It is as cheesy as it sounds.] |
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| Fran Lebowitz, by Ciana Pullen. Charcoal, 2012. You may reproduce this but only for noncommercial purposes and you must include easily visible accreditation (i.e. "Ciana Pullen") and a link to this blog. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of middle aged white woman with short brown hair in a shoulder length bob wearing a winter scarf. She's viewed from the side and turns her head to look sidelong at the viewer. She looks inquisitive yet unimpressed.] |
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| Photo of Fran Lebowitz. I couldn't find the photographer or publisher, so let me know if you know who took this. |
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| Fran Lebowitz for BBC2 "Building Sights." Couldn't find the photographer for this either, though it might be a film still. |
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| Fran Lebowitz, photographed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, 1996. |
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| Fran Lebowitz, by Jonathan Twingley. [Image: caricature of Lebowitz in black & white pen with a blue jacket. The proportions of her mouth are really exaggerated.] |
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| Husband Watching Walking Dead. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of head & shoulders of white man nearly in profile. He's lit from the front and slightly below, looking tense.] |
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| Portrait of my cat sitting under an arrangement of white Asian chrysanthemums and baby's breath in a spaghetti sauce jar. She hears my husband in the kitchen and suspects he might be doling out soft food but is not so sure that she's willing to give up her warm spot. She also cannot quite see over her own fat belly into the kitchen. She eventually got up and investigated, making this an extremely quick sketch. [Image: black & white pen sketch of a cat curled up under a flower arrangement, looking at something to the right out of frame. She sits partially behind a glass jar full of flowers that are very quickly sketched.] |
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| A photo of Kitty after she returned, disappointed, to her warm spot, sitting next to the drawing. |
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| Tuppence, from Agatha Christie's Tommy & Tuppence. I'm actually pretty proud of this one. Caricatures are way harder than realistic portraits, IMO. I pressed "play" preparing to draw twenty or so cartoons till one looked passable, but shockingly I was happy with the first try. Of course, as soon as I realized I liked the face I overworked it. The other thing that made me happy is that her entire head and upper body fit comfortably on the page. I have a major problem with fitting everything I want onto the page, even if the page is five feet tall. I have to constantly remind myself, "keep it small." I have a drawer full of figure drawings where the head is cut off by the top of the page because I didn't leave room. Lessons learned: 1. When you've got a good cartoon line, leave it alone! Opposite of painting, where if you fall in love with something you've made, you must destroy it and re-work it. 2. Booze is an excellent preparation for loose drawing. [Image: black & white pen drawing of a white woman in a flowery dress, net lace gloves and a Sunday hat looking demure with her hands clasped and neck craned. The lines are quickly drawn and simple. Not very realistic.] |
