Saturday, June 5, 2010

Illustration Friday: Trail of Glory


**********The young in particular, think that the way to go is in a trail of glory. What they don't realize is that there will always be someone left behind. Someone who will watch them go with a mixture of pride, joy, and sadness.

The expression is tough. I've been reading Gary Faigin's book "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expressions," where he goes through what all the different facial muscles do, and how they work in various expressions. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm not sure, though, in this picture, that the smiling part of this came out. The crying part did, I think, but it's really mixed.

I used absolutely crappy paper, where every time my pen nib blobbed ink, it absorbed it in a blurry puddle before I could even soak it up. And the pen nibs are absolute crap. Art stores used to carry a whole variety of nibs, and you could buy replacements of your favorites, and now all they carry are prepackaged sets from Speedball....

8 comments:

  1. Like the 'roughness' to your sketches...(slither is great)...adds character to your draws. One of the projects the local art college does is self-portraits with varying expressions...they are about 3x3 and all in a line consisting of about 7 total images...really sharp when they pull it off.

    And for the most part they don't...which is why it was such a tough year even though we had a lot of success.5 scholarships got it all and 8 of the 9 are going to college. It usually takes a full year or two in college before they can look back and get it...

    You make sure you have a great summer too and I think it is awesome that you branch out. I think writing and visual art are very much intertwined and having the capability to do both is a great blessing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like the cross-hatching you've got going on around the chin and mouth!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You definitely captured a sense of pride, and I lime how you went ahead despite the paper not being the ideal paper. Love the expression and expressive style here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wonderful thoughts this time of year - with graduations and the like... You've captured lots of emotions here, despite the pen nib troubles! Very nice.

    Thanks for your comments on my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  5. A very expressive face--the subject does seem to have very mixed emotions-- and interesting thoughts about the theme

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think you got the expression down, with the eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. love the expression captured!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love this woman's face. Love the pride and the happiness. Gonna look at some of your others now.

    ReplyDelete