Proper Portraits for Paupers.

i lost my enthusiasm for drawing runway models as i realized that their mainstream type of beauty is all too common - so, i set out to capture more unique faces.  typical beauty is what everyone notices.  its what everyone wants. and its what we're getting spoon fed by everyday life.  there is already enough of it - i dont need to add to it.  however, while we are saturated with these monotonous images of "beauty"our world is also littered with quirky noses, bulging eye balls, receding mandibles and lots of wrinkles.  this is the stuff i noticed as a kid and many times these facets on faces end up being the part of the body i cherish on the people i love.  i can remember being a five year-old pinching the extra skin on my grandpa's elbows or the soft bags under his smiling grey eyes and and then letting go to watch the folds mosey back to their cosy, wrinkly, place.  as a kid, i did not notice the really pretty lady with "flawless" features or the man with a perfectly symmetrical 1.618 face.  i was (and still) captivated by a crooked nose or a lady with the tiny-thin lips that barely seem to move...perhaps an old lady's ears have gotten so big and bendy that it looks like she is always listening... or just the pleasure of my grandpa's squishy, wrinkly wrinkles that felt good to pinch.   whatever it is, i would like to capture that novel feeling.

each one of these drawings is inspired by a face, or part of a face, that i saw in passing - usually on the streets or MTA in NYC.  none of them are "beautiful" models but they all have a story.

Marble eyes:

i like to make the iris of the eye look like its a clear glass marble sitting above the eye ball - so much so that they usually sit outside of the eye lid.  

grandpa

grandpa 2

Pearl

my first time putting eye lids over my "marble" eyes.

these lips were taken from a kid sleeping on the Q (shown above this picture)

he really was wearing a baseball cap - which made him so endearing.

i had to get a quick sketch of this jesus look-alike as he enjoyed a coffee with his boyfriend.

a quick sketch of this restless old man on the Q train

my twist...i took the liberty of giving the man something calming.

this woman had so much work done (botox/facelifts, etc.) that this drawing of her looks more natural than she did.

i wanted to draw a few from the perspective of a little kid looking up at these new faces.

i challenged my self to make the nose look like it was being pressed up against a window.

i swear, i take the bus every morning with a woman that looks just like this. promise.

i'm figure its not possible to see both nostrils and the back of an ear unless you're looking from down below.