Eddie Sr.
Eddie Sr.
Meet Eddie Sr.!
Eddie Sr. works in a garage under our building. We have a team of hikers who park and bring up cars in the garage because the space is too small and tight to let amateur drivers, like yours truly, do that. We need professionals. Eddie Sr. parks and delivers my car for me for more than 10 years. It is amazing to see tiny spaces and angles he can fit through. In reverse! I have always liked Eddie. I think he has a wonderful face. Which brings me to an interesting thought.
A few days back a fellow artist Nicola of PointyPix left a comment on this blog. She wrote that I must be living in a very interesting place where I get to meet all these great characters.
I don’t think I live in a very interesting place – it is your regular boring place. Or at least it was until I started this project and began looking for faces to draw. The more I looked – the more interesting people became. I found that if you really look, then you find them – amazingly in the same place where they have been all along.
On the other hand I have to confess to applying a selection to my models. Yes, they are regular people from my regular life, but I realized that I am selecting my subject based on an emotional connection I may feel to him or her, even if they are a stranger. If I don’t have that connection, I am too bored to do a portrait. So it isn’t just anyone.
How do you find and choose your subject? This question is not portrait specific – any subject…
#28 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
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I agree, you have to have any interest in your subject, no matter if it’s a portrait or a water tower! 🙂
You did a great job on Eddie Sr. I love his skin tone and his hair and beard.
Thank you, Carol! I think it takes something else beside the interest. Interest is a requirement, that’s a given, but for example – I am very interested in water towers and cityscape in general, yet I am not working on these things because I am working on something else. I am curious what more one interesting subject has over another interesting subject so it gets chosen. I haven’t been able to articulate that.
First of all, I am blown away how you rendered the inside lining of his jacket. I can feel the soft felt-like material just by looking at it, Alex. The same with the hair and the intricate change of values in it from dark to light. My favorite so far!
Oh my! Your question is one I can only answer by saying whatever draws me in next! Sometimes I select my subject material to fit a certain technique I am exploring. Sometime it is selected because I want to share a “how to” with my classes. Most of the time I am drawn to something that pulls on my feelings and says, “I can be a challenge. I dare you to try me!”
Thank you so much, Leslie! The lining of his jacket was an happy accident :D! That came out of laziness :lol:! I felt too lazy to build tone starting from hard graphite layers and put soft graphite straight on white paper. As a result the tooth of the paper was showing creating a fuzzy texture. I saw that and was delighted. Now I know how to create fuzzy textures!
Great answer to my question! I appreciate you taking time to write it out. I can totally relate to “I can be a challenge. I dare you to try me!” Have done quite a few of those myself!
Hi Alex, Another stunning portrait – this may be one of my favourites although it is a very close thing to call!! Since I started doing the sketchbook project (my theme is ‘if you lived here’ so I’ve been doing mostly landscapes) I’ve discovered a love of stonewalls/bricks and also stark silhouettes in black against a beautiful sky (sunrise/sunset) – there’s been a bit of a theme of these running through so far and I don’t know if it’s because I think the scene itself is beautiful or because the colours against the black lend themselves to well to ink and watercolours – possibly a little bit of both.
Thank you so much, Nicola! Also thank you for giving me this idea – to make an inquiry into where the inspiration comes from and discover that it comes from within, the subjects are the same that they have been for years. I too love stone/brick textures and silhouettes against the sky. I always look at the them, be that trees or roofs, and wish there were 50 hours in each day.
[…] Jr. is a son of Eddie Sr. I was excited to have an opportunity to draw both father and son. When I did portraits of my […]