Portrait drawings have always been more interesting to me when they are… wonky. Since I generally work in marker and ink (rarely having the opportunity to erase or correct my work), I am able to focus on the imperfections of the face to really push character.
Below are a variety of portrait galleries, each grouped either by medium or theme. Don’t forget that I can immortalize you or a loved one in a similar fashion with my $25 portrait commissions!
Fugly Mugs: Marker Portraits On Acid
In an age of affordable digital cameras see a rise in candid photography and less the staged Sears portraiture that used to adorn our mothers walls. While spontaneous, these photos lead to a lot more objection from the subject: “Oh, I look FAT in that one. Oh, they just caught my bad side.”
To that end, I set out to draw truly unflattering portraits from such photos. To reflect the candidness of this kind of photography, I used mediums that can’t be erased or reworked; mistakes make up the portraits. Yet friends and family can often tell who the subject is, because we forget that people see and recognise us from all angles, not just those few perfect shots.
These are a selection of drawings on a variety of colour paper. They were exhibited along with 116 others in 2012 as part as a dual show entitled ‘Face Value’ with Rebecca Junkin at Utility Gallery, Halifax.
Sketchbook Portraits
This is a collection of drawings from my sketchbooks. The pieces are done in marker, ink, pen, brushpen and (on rare occasion) pencil. They are usually taken out of the newspaper or online articles where I find people’s expressions to be amusing.
