Despite face blindness, I used to be obsessed with painting portraits. I think that the face blindness is actually what made me concentrate especially hard on faces. I’m not sure how other people see and recognize faces. Personally, I’m not completely unable to recognize people, but the more average they are, the harder it is for me to tell them apart. I’ve read that studies have shown that when asking people to choose the most attractive face from images that were digitally generated from multiple faces, the faces that were generated by combining the most faces were chosen as the most attractive. For me, it’s the opposite. If someone looks too perfect, I can’t tell them apart from others and I can’t therefore find them aesthetically pleasing. The most attractive faces to me are ones that stand out by having some unusual feature or arrangement of features.
“There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.”
– Edgar Allan Poe
Unless they have some other distinction, I often can’t tell actors apart. The worst kinds of shows and movies are ones where the major characters all dress the same with similar haircuts. I have absolutely no idea who is who. I often recognize actors by their voices rather than their faces.
I used to work for days, hour after hour, trying to nail down every detail. Often I’d get so deep into detail that the overall picture was off. Capturing a likeness was extremely difficult. I got better and better with practice, of course, though I’m still not sure what it is about a face that makes it actually look like an individual.
I’ve reached a plateau with that though. I’m not interested in photorealism. I’m no longer particularly interested in realism. If I want realism, I’ll take a photo. Now I’m more interested in capturing essence and feeling. I think this is a natural progression for artists, and I think it took me personally decades longer than it takes many. I wish I would have arrived here sooner, but there’s no point in regrets. I’m happy to have arrived here now. Bit by bit I am becoming more myself.
Progress Snapshots
