Return of the Bearded Lady

I was mentioning my efforts to relearn my artistic skills by sketching women and the not always spectacular results. Now being wise and crafty readers you are no doubt asking yourself, “If it’s so difficult why are you doing it?”

And you would be well within your rights to ask for an explanation instead of a steady stream of whining.

Now remember sketching women is a time-honored artistic deal. Even the Cubists with their rejection of all understandable form knew how to draw women, they just refused. It’s one thing to work in a form which rejects form because you can’t draw and a very different thing to do it because you are seeking a greater truth.

But back to my problem, if it is so hard why not plants or birds or bees or motorcycles or, gasp, ships? (What a thought, living on the coast draw something that is everywhere and stands still!)

I do it because it is hard. Now, I could do small children, they have many of the same issues for the artist which women do, but, I just don’t like them. Oh they have their place and many people assure me that they can be wonderfully rewarding, but for me, I’ll take dogs.

The challenges for an artist attempting to use a two dimensional method to describe a very un two dimensional object requires great attention to anatomy, light and shadow and texture. Women with their delicate features rob the artist of the single most useful thing in nature, shadows.

Now men, they have large, gross in strictly scientific terms, craggy features which catch the light and need very little help to create rich, dark, frequent shadows. Think about the hallows and crags of Richard Boone’s face. (I won’t say a thing about his nose.) Okay so that dates me, let’s try Rod Stewart, or Gabriel Byrne or rubber man Jim Carrey, each and every one has a face made to trap shadows. And it is a poor artist who can’t at least get a face full of shadows down on paper so that the casual observer can spot the likeness.

But just try that with a woman. I like Jennifer Aniston, but where the hell did her nose go? Don’t even get me started on Jennifer Lopez or Julia Roberts. How ‘bout one large feature guys, even the ones who do have a nose lack some other light trapping nook not to mention cranny. Pug nose should be a four letter word.

All of this is why artists have always returned to the human face to find something to hone their skills on. It ain’t easy and no two are alike.