#practice series

Face # 10: Self-portrait

Practice series complete!

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 4: Click here

Face # 5: Click here

Face # 6: Click here

Face # 7: Click here

Face # 8: Click here

Face # 9: Godspeed into the hereafter, Eva!

So, folks, at the end of 24’ I lost a buddy. An elderly buddy, but a buddy, nonetheless. Last year I started doing a little volunteer work in my community, spending time on random Saturdays in food pantries and soup kitchens. One of those Saturdays I met Eva, an old lady with a medical condition that required frequent cranial surgery. Eva was always extremely conversational with everyone, because she loved life and people. Eva wore shawls to cover up her cosmetically damaged scalp and despite her condition, she chose to be happy, friendly and optimistic with everyone. We became friends after I noticed she had a unique ability to read how you were feeling or what you were thinking just by observing your facial expressions and body language. Eva was a mother of four, grandmother to twelve, and she loved professional wrestling. Although I haven’t watched the product since my late teens, I found myself compelled to occasionally visit her at her assisted living community and watch WWE, TNA and AEW. Her favorite type of wrestler was the chickenshit heels, who she would laugh and boo at. Outside of that, we would talk about each other’s lives and experiences, and when she caught me being melancholy or negative, she’d say something like, “Get your head out of the wreckage, kiddo, good things are a ‘coming for you!”

Come late December, I went by her room to visit with some baked goods for the holidays, and her family was there instead. I asked what happened, and they told me she passed peacefully during a recent surgery. After lightly bawling in the lobby, I went home and drew her face to remember her. I'm not saying it's a good drawing, but it does remind me of her. I wish I would have appreciated our time even more than I did, and I wish I could have spent more time with her. I’ll miss you, Eva. I’ve got one more of these to go and it’ll be a self-portrait… but I’m going to be taking a break from Tumblr soon, so that’ll be much later this year.

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 4: Click here

Face # 5: Click here

Face # 6: Click here

Face # 7: Click here

Face # 8: Vampire mum

This year (2024) I have been trying to draw faces, all year long. When I started the year off, I wanted to get back to basics because I'd always struggled with faces. Faces are tough to execute, folks! Try drawing one yourself, it ain't easy without losing proportionality here or there! Doing this exercise all year has taught me to draw clearer and bolder lines, reduce blowouts by carefully selecting line weight and application, and delicately adding detail to establish some dimension. Even though I'm not GREAT at faces, I'm way better than I was to start the year off. In my last entry I mentioned I would try a dynamic angle this time, and I also mentioned I had a new local single mom friend named Britt. Britt and I were hanging out on Halloween recently, and she dressed up like a vampire while taking her kids trick or treating.

Britt is kind of a hot mom, and she's English so she's got the foreign accent appeal working strong in her favor. Britt and I tried to date for a while this year, and without saying too much we get along great because we're both snarky, but we figured out our physical chemistry is about as rocky and arid as the Sahara fucking desert. Ho-hum. Britt's got a five-year-old daughter and a baby, and for Halloween she crammed a big, fake looking vampire plastic piece into her mouth, applied some fake blood from an ampoule, and went bare minimum while we took her daughter around the neighborhood for candy. I kept laughing at her because it was quite hilarious to see a grown woman, medical secretary by trade, with her mouth hanging wide open. I wanted to capture the look of joy and vigilance on Britt's face as she watched her daughter retrieve candy house-to-house. Motherly love is quite the sight to see, even if it is behind fake blood and plastic teeth. For my next entry, I think I'll try… an old face. Then I'll do a self-portrait sketch to cap off the year. Have a great Sunday, folks! I’ll have new paintings posted soon!

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 4: Click here

Face # 5: Click here

Face # 6: Click here

Face # 7: Baby Frog ruminates

To recap once more, this year (2024) I have been trying to draw faces, all year long. Being an outsider artist, I never had anyone teach me how to do it. So once again, I will just teach myself by doing it over and over in different variations. Recently I went out on a few dates with this single mom, her name is Britt. No spark, no problem, we kind of became friends instead. I’ve been over to her place a few times and met her infant boy. I won’t give you the boy’s name, but I call him Baby Frog because he’s got a bit of a froggy face going on. He’s like all other babies. He loves to laugh, and he gets fussy sometimes, but he also makes this stone-cold face when I’m talking to his mom, like I owe him money, or like he knows something about my mother.

Out of any of the drawings I’ve done for this series, this one was by far the easiest. Babies have these fat, lumpy faces that basically have no definition. This kid has eyes that are deep brown, and they're HUGE, so when he’s just kind of passive and staring at something he kinda looks like he’s a possessed stone golem. Britt puts him in funny hats that make his head look like a big, chubby mushroom stalk. He drools uncontrollably all the time. When I’m over at Britt’s place I sometimes wish I could get away with an infant’s social behavior and fashions. I often wonder if the Baby Frog is in deep thought when he just stares away like he does, and I wonder if he’ll have the same steely glance as an adult, because it’s somewhat intimidating even at his age. I’ve come to like Baby Frog a lot, and he has enjoyed my company as well. I’m around few babies these days, and despite their awkward mannerisms, I still like them better than adults. Infants are just honest. Drawing faces has been generally difficult, next time I’ll try an adult face at a dynamic angle. I’ve got to keep challenging myself, and I’m still not VERY good at this. More to come!

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 4: Click here

Face # 5: Click here

Face # 5: Trauma @ the trainstop...

This year (2024) I’ve been trying to draw faces, all year long. By the end of this year, I hope to capture some truly expressive faces with my drawings. So far, this multi-drawing series is teaching me to pound in bold and thick black outlines and make a conscious effort to draw straighter lines that don’t blow out or must be erased. I think my overall quality with this face experiment is gradually becoming less cartoony and more semi-realistic as I practice. The human face is hard to draw folks! The proportions! Oh, the proportions! I haven't attempted a profile yet, so here's one.

This last week, I was waiting for the light rail at a stop in Charlotte. I find a lot of expressive faces at train stops recently, and at first this was a happy face. A pretty, smiling woman approached me and then sat on my left side, a pane of multihued plexiglass separating us which sort of distorted the shadow of her head into a rainbow. I was trying not to look at her, but it’s summer and I’m single, gimme a break. I peered over quickly and noticed that her smile had been replaced with a million-mile, far-away glance. She was holding her phone in her left hand like a rock, and I assume she had just received a bad news text. It was particularly jarring when I saw a single tear roll down her right cheek. It was like she went through some kind of instant sea change within herself but was also trying to hold it together in public. Whatever happened, I hope she is okay, because my train was about to board, and then I was whisked away from this stranger forever. She looked suddenly traumatized and her whole face and body became suddenly still, like a statue, as she processed a new and jarring piece of information. The image was burned on my brain, so when I got home, I tried to draw her. More to come!

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 6: @ the bar with Winston from London

This year (2024) I have been trying to draw faces, all year long. By the end of this year, I hope to capture some truly expressive faces with my drawings. This last week I sauntered into Cowbell, a restaurant in Charlotte with great burgers and potent drinks. I sat at the bar and inadvertently met a group of three guys from the UK that wrapped themselves around the corner-bar. They were trying to start an international business of sorts and were thinking of setting up an office in North Carolina. These guys started buying me beers after they began asking me about the political situation in America. I guess because I was keeping them entertained at the bar, they started dropping some coin to keep me there. Among these English dudes was their youngest, drunkest, loudest and most brash member, Winston.

I had already been drinking a series of high-powered Manhattans when this group of Londoners approached my left-flank. After giving them my thoughts on modern politics in America, which I dare not repeat here on Tumblr, Winston said to the attractive bartender, “Close this fella’s tab, we’ve got his drinks until we leave.” So, I paid my bill, and these guys plied me with beer as a business expense until 12:30AM while I answered their intoxicated, but very proper English questions. Winston began telling me he was a big Millwall soccer hooligan before his shift into the business world. Winston had a girlfriend that was also his baby momma… and I guess because he was visiting America, he kept insisting on repeatedly fist-bumping me because he interpreted it as a charming local custom. Seriously, I have never fist bumped anyone intentionally, and this guy must have requested more than twenty fist bumps that very night. I found Winston initially likeable because he was charismatic, but he revealed himself as a bit of a grating asshole. After hitting on the bartender several times and asking me how I felt about Pakistani immigration (???), he openly told me he was partially in America to chase ‘American tail’. This gentleman proceeded to tell me everything about his life and everything he knew about London, until his business partners dragged him away. No matter what he was saying, his spirits were high, he was laughing hilariously every other sentence, and sometimes, I swear, he was laughing so hard he was crying a little. I wanted to remember his face for that dichotomy. So, I drew it. I think this was a guy that just liked listening to himself talk. More to more!

Face # 1: Click here

Face # 2: Click here

Face # 3: Click here

Face # 4: Click here

Face # 1: Lethargy at the museum

This year (2024) I’ll be trying to draw faces, all year long. By the end of the year, I’d like to be able to capture some truly emotive expressions on faces. I was never good at drawing any portion of the human physique, but some practice will get me closer. Sorry if these start off rough or scratchy, this is merely my first try. Just trying to improve my line work and technique in regard to sketching.

Face # 2: Far and away on the light rail

This year (2024) I’ll be trying to draw faces, all year long. Sorry if these start off rough or scratchy, this is merely my first couple of tries. This week, I bought myself a new sketch pad and took the light rail back home, only to come across a perfect drawing opportunity right off the cuff.

I’ve never been good with names, but faces I remember upon the first time seeing one. There was a young gentleman that quietly sat across from me on the rail. It was pretty clear that he had just gotten out of work, I could tell he was tired. The entire time he was on the train he was just looking out the window, far and away. I could tell he was transfixed on something, a person maybe, or a memory. I figured if this guy was going to just sit there giving me a dynamic angle, I may as well try and sketch him. I hope if anyone ever catches me drawing them in a public space that they understand I’m not some freak. I’m just trying to get better at representing the dimensions of the human face.