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Bob
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I am having a lot of fun exploring how to do faces. I don't expect it is a surprise to many people but every line that appears to be in a photograph is not good line to draw and the best line is often not in the photo at all. Even though I know I need to master the face and facial expressions I know that is not enough. Portraits have a limited appeal, generally, they are only of interest to family members. What seems to have a broader appeal are situational scenes of people interacting with each other or with their environment. Norman Rockwell is an example of an artist with a great sense of the interesting interpersonal situational interaction. So far I have done a few candid, a few posed and a few constructed situations. You can see some of them here and I encourage you to send me comments.
Paducah Lowertown Art and Music Festival 2008 (last update 5-29-30)
I met some interesting artists at the Lowertown Arts and music Festival. The quality of work there was really great this year. Several of them gave me permission to use their images in my computer drawings.
Artists in Paducah's Lowertown Art District
My wife and I bought a building on the outskirts of Lower town. We plan to convert it to a gallery/ studio/ home. It has a mixed use zoning that is hard to find in most places in this country. This is partly the appeal of lower town since they let the artists have a home business where they can sell out of their homes. Lower town is within walking distance of hotels and B&B's and the downtown. It is home to many artists and their galleries. they have designated it the Lowertown Arts District. here. The city has a program to help artists relocate to Paducah.
I have walked into most of these galleries and often taken pictures of the artists that I use as a reference for my drawings. Here are some of the people that live in Lowertown.
The PAPA gallery is Paducah's connection to the fine art artists in western Kentucky and its surrounds. Paducah for all it's modest size is still the cultural hub for an area about 75 miles around. St Louis, Memphis and Nashville are all a couple of hours drive away which leaves Paducah as the regional shopping and Medical center. When I retired from a company in New Jersey, I was surprised to find that the ratio of doctors to patients in Paducah was almost the same as New Jersey. The two large Hospitals and the lower costs for housing made it very attractive as a retirement area.
The PAPA artists are a great bunch of people. As you might expect the majority are women. That reflects the reality of art as a difficult profession and the higher proportion of men as the major supporting spouse. The need for spousal support does not diminish the high quality of work at the Papa gallery. I am not a painter. In fact I am not sure graphic artists will ever be considered Fine artists. The situation is much like photography. It took many decades before it was recognized as a potential art form. In Photography, The "Print" is actually the expression of art. In the print various techniques like burning in, dodging and other tricks are the means which allow the Photographer to create art from a negative. I think composition, Framing, and color control are also part of the art.
I have done a few of the artists at PAPA.
I go alternate Saturdays to gossip with a great bunch of Locals at the Etc Coffee house in Lowertown. Check it Out.
I am experimenting with the idea that a facial expression may be adequately rendered in constant width line and with a limited color palette. Further, we can limit each color to be uniform and bounded by a closed curve. This gives a simple comic book look. As limiting as this is it can produce very recognizable rendering of a real person and its simplicity lets you concentrate on the subtle effects of small tweaking of line and angle. The two self images you see here demonstrate that the concept of a closed curve has less limitations than you might think. The one on the right is an early version of a self portrait. Originally I thought that shadow lines were important lines. I was wrong. Eventually I decided that a form of self luminous image such as you might find on a bright overcast day was OK. On such a day there is no shadow and no such thing as dramatic lighting.
On the plus side of these constraints is the removal of unneeded complexity. This lets you concentrate on the elements of expression as symbolized by lines. These lines represent structure such as the edge produced by a sudden change in depth. They can also hint at critical changes in surface curvature like where skin folds. In general. I think only a portion of a structure line is needed. The less the better. In young people creases are not very sharp so you leave them out completely. In older people they become part of the facial character so you retain more of them. In general, less is more. On the left is a graphic of a dear old gentleman named Stan Baker. He runs an antique store in Paducah, KY. Stan has a lot more lines in his face, but as you can see only a few are needed to hint at the years he has under his belt. Stan gave me permission to use his likeness and name. I hope you will do the same as I am always looking for subject matter.
Examining Facial Expressions
Just what contributes to a facial expression is not all that clear to me yet. I think the brain has a facial recognition section that catches very subtle differences in the position of muscles, lips, eyes and head angle and sends a non verbal result to the thinking part of the brain. This is why we can often say what the expression on a person's face represents yet find it very difficult to say just what it is about the face that makes it represent that expression rather than some other. We just know and it is a non visual, non verbal communication. If I had to guess it probably is a part of the facial recognition ability. I have heard that it is a part of the brain dedicated totally to this purpose.
I would like to know what clues contribute to facial expression. I think that facial lines and their relative positions can act as recognizable symbols for facial expressions. These lines as symbols should be easier to analyze than photographs. They probably will also be easier to program if we want to test the result with experiments and perhaps automate facial animation.
Initially, I propose to place graphics of faces on this website and make it so that people can give an opinion on just what the expression means and why they think so. For example consider the girl on the right. What is her expression? (Sorry, it is one of my early graphics and I was trying to do a Gary Trudeau type of thing with her eyes)
Call her Alex. What is she expressing?
Please send me feedback to the contact email below.
Eventually I want to produce a catalog of expressions and the reasons people think they express what they do.
If you want to help by sending me a photo of yourself with an interesting expression I will see about putting it up for a vote. Tell me what you think your expression n the photo represents and affirm that it is your photo, that I may use a graphic based on it on this website and you won't sue me if I do. Oh, and tell me if you want to be named or be anonymous.
Let me know what you think.
Bob Davis