“A Whaaaat?”
Just an update on my earlier post regarding my difficulties with the Paul Pierce drawing I was trying (and failing) to do.
I was able to finish it last night, and I’m happy with it for the most part. I still think it could look more like him, but I’m willing to concede that part of that may be due to the facial expression he’s making. It’s not like it’s his typical face, so in trying to capture that emotion while having it still look like him (in the way that he appears in my mind’s eye), I probably stacked the deck against myself. At least in terms of my own comfort level. I think it resembles him just enough for me to feel comfortable declaring the piece finished and allowing it to be auctioned off, but that “just comfortable enough” feeling, when it’s been present, always constitutes an uneasy peace that I’ve made with myself (as opposed to, say this Ortiz drawing, about which I never had a moment’s doubt).
Here’s the finished piece:
Regardless of the perceived lack of resemblance to Pierce, I like what’s going on in the piece. It has a more rushed/sketchy feeling than I usually render (I’m often guilty of trying to be too fine, usually at the expense of the work). It probably came out that way because after drawing four or five iterations of his face, trying to get it right, and finally settling on a version I could actually live with, I hastily dashed out the rest of the drawing just to get away from the glacial pace I had set.
Anyway, it’s up for auction now, with a bid of $300 on it so far. So between this and the Ortiz piece I donated, I’m responsible for almost $1000 going to fight ALS. As I said in my post regarding the Ortiz drawing, that’s money I’m in no position to contribute out of my own pocket, so to be able to do it this way has been rewarding. Plus, I caught a 3-ton shark in the process… or perhaps the better analogy would be that I caught a tiger shark (“A whaaat?”) in my search for a great white, but hey, I gotta be pretty happy under the circumstances.
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