On faces.

Date: 18 November 2012 14:52:47

If there's one thing that causes my blood to go cold with fear it's somebody asking me to draw them. Because I know it'll either work or... well... It won't and I can never tell how I get the ones to work and vice versa.

So, if you're not good at something you either run away from it or practise, right?

I say that. I've done some (+) very (+) happy (+) events when I've drawn people and, nearly always every pic has come out OK... but its not a controllable thing and I find myself very strained after those pictures more than I do when I'm drawing, say, a coffee cup. One of my art teachers, way back when, said that it's because I'm too nice and I try to soften what I'm drawing as I work, which may well be the case.

So I'm aiming to practise as a Friday night half hour doodle completely defeated me :( With that in mind I'm aiming to draw more people who I like, or am fascinated by. I'd say daily but tomorrow contains a timetable when I start teaching at 8.50 and finish at 5.30 with three 20 min breaks so, let's be honest, don't think it'll be daily. When I can, then.

To start off with? Sir Stephen of Fry. As he's mellifluous and fabulous. A voice is often where I can be drawn into someone to the greatest possible degree and SSF, like Neil Gaiman, Will Gompertz, Andy Ihnatko and Sir Jony Ive all have voices I could sit and listen to for hours on end. Alison Moyet too who is just fabulous in every respect... (links all drawn on iPad or iPhone except for AM who I've not drawn on a tablet yet...)

So as you can see, I don't shy away from drawing people, but it's time for me to work out what I'm doing with that and try and do it better... We'll see how long this regime lasts. The plan will be to draw the subject in the space of time of one song (so Stephen took 3.58 for example) and, when tech allows I'll screen capture the process too... Hope it works...