Posts Tagged ‘portraits’
I’m going crazy over these archival portraits of criminals in Sydney, Australia. They were taken between 1912-1948 and are part of the archives of the Sydney Police. I’m not sure if it was standard to shoot booking portraits like this at that time or not, but they remind me of another series from back in the day called Crooks Like Us that I posted about before. Whatever the case, I think the most jarring aspect of the photographs is how well dressed everyone is for being criminals. Oh the times they are a changing…
Cleveland-based illustrator Oliver Barrett‘s “Completely Incomplete” series is a perfect example of an artist making sure his or her talent doesn’t sit idle. Plagued last summer by a lack of motivation, Oliver decided to force himself to draw a portrait for 15-30 minutes a day. He had only two rules: he could use only one color and once the allotted time had run it’s course, the piece was done. The results are wonderful.
Click through to see some of my personal favorite, and also be sure to check the blog he set up for the project.
While looking through Keinyo White’s impressive portraits, I wondered why I didn’t see more watercolor artists showing up on blogs or on visual aggregators such as FFFFOUND or Lookwork.
The idea that so few artists choose to explore this medium (especially when compared to acrylic and oil) saddens me. I’ve asked artists about this in the past and they’ve explained that they haven’t explored watercolor because it leaves little room for error. Painting over a mistake isn’t an option; at least not without losing the translucency that often helps define a watercolor. They also reminded me that watercolor has long been associated with country landscapes and flower still life.
To me, these sound like the perfect reasons to dive into watercolor. What artist wouldn’t want to push themselves towards perfection or help redefine how the non-art world views an entire medium? Maybe it’s time for me (and you?) to take a trip to the local art store.
More of Keinyo’s inspiring portraits below.
Greg Peltz saw some old Civil War photos and was inspired to do this portrait of Darth Vader. Round these parts, we’re big fans of Star Wars so when I found these I was pretty psyched. He has also done a few beautiful Victorian style portraits of a few other characters after the jump.
File this under things I wish I had thought of. It literally should be filed there since it came from The Jealous Curator via Jessica. Angela Fama took two photos of each of her subjects. One was straight on, DMV style. The other was after she told her subjects to look in a mirror the way that they would if they were at home doing that final check we all do before going out the door. Why do people turn their heads the way they do to look good? No one knows. We all just do for some reason. More proof after the jump.
