#24 Focus

This was an interesting one, and something I needed to learn. The example was, again, done in pencil, but the lesson applies to other media. The instructor called this exercise "leaving the forehead alone," but I interpreted it rather as knowing how to focus on the important part.

This woman's face contains a lot of wrinkles and laugh lines, and the instructor's point was that if you strove for complete verisimilitude, the lines take over the face and you don't get to the essence of the person. Her solution was to completely leave the forehead out of it.

That's a little bit harder to do in watercolor than in pencil (I think), but I did take her point, so I left the forehead a focus of light, with no lines marring the surface, merely suggested her rather wispy hair, and focused the viewer's attention completely on the facial expression and particularly on the eyes. I also followed her example by not painting the details of the shirt, but rather suggesting them with light and shadow.

I think the result is a pleasing resemblance in which you see the personality of the model and not every minute detail of her face.

I messed up the proportions of the glasses big-time, but tried to make them recede to become just part of the visual focus on the eyes.

#30Faces30Days
"Opal" on Sktchy
Uniball pen, watercolor, in Bee sketchbook