Load Bearing Eyes

It’s tempting to draw faces that are young and conventionally attractive, with features and proportions right in the middle of all the bell curves. I’m sure this is due partly to years of conditioning, and it’s certainly also due to the convenience… this is the Adam head, after all, the normalized expectation we have that we first learn to reproduce from our imaginations.

I think it’s pretty inevitable that you eventually learn to value the range of faces over the perfection of that Platonic ideal. Faces that have been so many places that they’ve become, in a sense, placeless… or that are sculpted by years of kinship and solitude… old faces, expressive faces, faces that speak in many voices at once.

The other day I had a brief, friendly exchange with a gentleman more than twice my age (and I’m easily at the halfway point of a standard lifespan), and even now, I remember something childlike in his expression. Drawing the rough old sailor above was fun, but I think a face that mixes youth and seniority in that way would probably be an even more interesting challenge. I think I’ll try that next time.

Paradox is the spark that lights the flame of fascination. I’ll keep drawing with that in mind.