Faces

Learning to See

someone, Pentel pen, KSully

An artist friend tipped Bill and me off to the PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR, a delightfully British show featuring a weeks-long competition to narrow down all the marvelous applicants to the one painter whose technique and panache wow the judges. We have been loving all the sights and sounds, the accents, the people-watching, the paints, paper, canvas, the famous and un-famous models.

Bill has been taking drawing and painting classes at Slow River Studio, a wonderful, small local art school for adults who want to find out about painting and drawing.

He has filled spiral notebooks full of urban sketches, people, still lives. He’s having a ball and has learned so much!

I have been painting for fifty odd years now, everything from portrait to travel, watercolor and acrylic to pastels, pen and ink and back again. In the past eight years, words took over, eclipsing music and art. But watching Bill made me miss painting! I got myself a sketchbook and started to play with faces. I use a Pentel pen and a waterbrush. That’s it. Gotta be simple or it doesn’t happen!

billy collins, Pentel/waterbrush ksully

Years ago, I took a portrait class at Brookline adult ed. The instructor let us in on a wonderful secret of making faces. We come in all different formations of noses, foreheads, chins and eyebrows, ears, the shape of our hairdo!! The hand-out she gave us seemed like a bit of a throw-away at the time.

Turns out, it changed how I look at a face, how I draw a face. The instructor told us, don’t draw eyes, nose, mouth. Draw instead the shapes of the face surrounding those features. When we do that, the features begin to appear! Having said that, the artist on the most recent Best Artist show says he always starts with the nose! So there’s that. Ahh, the endless variations of noses!!

I can hear you saying, But I’m not an artist, what difference does it make to me? You watch, you’ll just start to notice. It’s fun to notice!

Our faces are one of a kind. They are the window to our souls, our selves- and to think, we never actually see our own face! only a mirror image. Makes you wonder how much you really know yourself, don’t it??

I’ve been taken over by awareness that every single one of us is a walking storybook. Everyone wants to be seen, understood - if only for a passing moment. Noticing is the beginning of generosity, joy, empathy, love.

Get out there and notice!