Today’s experiment:

I am reviewing photographs I took of my older brother, Michael, during my last visit. My mother, younger brother and I visited him in his group home the day before his 64th birthday. Mike is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal.

For the past couple of days I have concentrated on sketching his portrait from photographs of that visit (Post Doodling, Identity and Circumstance).

Here is my watercolor sketch for today:

Mike Portrait
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

There are several problems with this sketch. The original photograph was taken at a high vantage point. The frown ridges in Mike’s expression indicate this, but there is a lack of foreshortening. The sketch would probably have made more sense if the foreshortening was included. The proportions of the face are not exactly kosher either.

My intention was to compose the face using geometric forms such as cylinders, cones, spheres, etc. However, it is not obvious that the face in the photograph is composed of these elements. It is rather flat, in fact.  Perhaps I in future sketches, I should assume, for example, that the area from the edge of the face across the cheek  is composed of a cylinder and sphere combination. Maybe I should make a pencil sketch of such a composition first.

Tomorrows sketch will address these issues: better relative proportions; preliminary sketch; color blending.