{"id":3783,"date":"2011-12-13T22:23:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T03:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=3783"},"modified":"2011-12-13T22:23:26","modified_gmt":"2011-12-14T03:23:26","slug":"portrait-night-1213-tilda-swinton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=3783","title":{"rendered":"Portrait Night 12\/13 (Tilda Swinton)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, for this week’s #PortraitNight drawing, instead of just breaking out the sketchbook and drawing someone, I decided to subject myself to a taste of my own medicine and do a caricature exercise I occasionally make my students do when I teach comics classes. The exercise is one of Ted Stearn’s (of Fuzz and Pluck<\/em> fame) and you can find it here<\/a>. Since I was working from a picture rather than a live subject, I had to modify the exercise slightly, but I kept with the general spirit of things.<\/p>\n

I started with two blind contour drawings, followed by one opposite hand drawing. I hesitated to even scan this since the point of these sorts of exercises has absolutely nothing<\/em> to do with what winds up on your page–It’s entirely about forcing yourself to really, really look<\/em> at what’s in front of you rather than drawing what you think something “should” look like. (See the great Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain<\/em> for a lot more on that.) It’s also a great way to familiarize yourself with your subject. I imagine my finger tracing around the subject’s face as my pencil moves. Anyway, here’s the result of that. (Since the drawing itself is inconsequential, I just drew each right on top of the other.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Then, as per the exercise, I studied the photo I was working from and made a list of what I thought the most prominent features were. Here’s the picture I was working from and my list (which you can see in my usual chicken-scratch at the top left of that sketchbook page above):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Features:<\/p>\n