The pursuit of likeness

For a long time now I have wanted to learn to draw portraits. I am not used to drawing faces or people, certainly not a likeness. However, to start with, I am making do with the best from a set of embarrassing family photographs taken over the Christmas period in France.


Any attempt I make to interpret a captured moment with a graphite stick, gives me a feeling of both frustration and pleasure all at once.

When I sketch, I am never sure if I am fully in control! My thick graphite stick, as if by magic seems to run out of my control. It slides and scrambles for a better line, searching out both good features and awkward features.

So if I am not in control who is? I wish it could be David Hockney.

The result, good or bad, I feel is a celebration, it leaves me a with better sense of myself and the person I am trying to capture on paper.

I will do my best to carry on the pursuit of likeness, and continue to wonder at the people who are able to achieve this so well.