#148 An irregular face

In watercolor class yesterday (Dec. 17) we did portraits. Each person brought in a photo to work from. One was using a photo of an Indian from a book; one was using a photo of her daughter; the instructor, Charlie, was using candid shots of his grand daughter; one woman brought in the movie poster with Russell Crow’s face; my husband had a color snapshot of Lindsey, our step-grand daughter; and I was working from a black and white studio photograph of a young woman.

Charlie first reviewed the face map concept. Draw an oval and divide horizontally, and vertically in halves. Most people draw the eyes too high--they are actually in that middle horizontal line. The face is about five eye-widths wide, and there is an eye width between the eyes. Divide the bottom half of the head in half again. The nose gets the top half and you divide that bottom half in thirds to find the lips and chin. Draw lines from the eyeballs down the cheeks and that is the edges of the mouth. The top of the ears line up with the eyebrows.

Of course, no one has a perfect face map. Charlie stopped by to see what I was drawing. He suggested that the face didn’t really fit all the mapping rules, since my drawing wasn’t really looking like the photo, although I was following the rules of mapping. The distance from the nose to the chin is irregular, he commented, longer than would be expected. And the lips don’t quite line up with the eyes. Before he could go much further, my husband said, “Do you recognize that person?” “No, I don’t.” “That’s Norma the first year we were married.” “Oh.” No more comments on the irregular face.