The Human Figure

“The human figure” I was given this title for a project, after exploring many aspects of this there was one which seemed to stick, looking into human features and how each and every one of us have inherited our features and characteristics from another person.

After seeing the work of a photographer called Larry Sultan I was immediately inspired to take pictures of my family and the way they are on a day to day basis. I then chose to concentrate on the facial features of my family members. the ones which you could clearly see had been passed down the family line. I later noticed when taking these pictures in such a relaxed way, whilst talking to the models I was capturing their facial expressions at the same time. I started drawing from these photographs trying to express the emotions which you could see on their faces, within the expressive lines and textures of the portrait study. Using the colours and shapes of expressive lines to portray the expressions, I then thought how the models face could appear emotionless yet the model could be feeling something very strongly. Considering this idea, I decided to change the way I was creating these portrait pieces. To draw my portraits with the absence of emotion on their faces but the surroundings of the portrait would be expressing everything.