Portraits

[pegkerr]

I read this interesting article on the blog Jane Austen's World [janitesonjames] about the making of silhouettes, which was hugely popular and inexpensive way to capture likenesses before photography was invented. Those of you who saw the movie "Sense and Sensibility" may remember the scene where Marianne creates a silhouette of Willoughby, using a candle and graphing paper.

It made me think about the human impulse to capture the likeness of loved ones. I do this by having pictures taken of our family, and as you know, they have given me a great deal of pleasure. I've mentioned previously my family's connection with the artist Richard Serrin, and the picture he painted of our family, placing us all in a piazza in Italy.

Besides these instances, I sat for a portrait with an artist when I was nine years old. Mom and Dad commissioned one of each of their children when we were on vacation in Rockport, Massachusettes, and the four portraits hung on the wall in our family room for years (Mom and Dad, do you still have those portraits? They're not hanging on your wall in your new home presently, I believe?) I remember very well sitting for that portrait, and being so fascinated by how the artist captured my face (I thought) so exactly. When it was done, my parents decided that they didn't quite like the color of the checking on my dress (it was lavender) and so the artist re-touched it, changing the lavender striping to blue. I remember thinking how strange that was, to have such an exact replica of my face and yet to change the detail of what I was wearing. Sort of a non-photographic version of Photoshop.

When I was in my teens, my dad took a sketching class, and he invited me to come to one class to act as the model (fully clothed, honest!) One of the artists gave me her sketch of my face when the class was over, and I've kept it in my genealogy box, as a picture of myself at that age.

Then, of course, there are the caricatures I've occasionally had made at amusement parks, parties, etc.

Have you ever sat for a portrait, in oils or pen drawing or otherwise? What was the occasion? Were you happy with the result? Can you post a picture of it? What do you think is gained by having a portrait in an artistic medium other than photography?

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

All the pictures of me I know of are photographs. I've had a number of shots of me done in studios by friends, and deciding which are "portraits" and which are "snapshots" (that happened to be taken in a studio) is highly problematic even for me, and potentially socially fraught I suppose (apologies to any friends who think their shots of me should be on my main "portraits" page! Maybe they should, too). Ones taken by strangers for money are more clear-cut somehow; also entirely old (the latest dates from 1972).

I've collected the formal portraits of me here.

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

I had a caricature done in Budapest, as did the two friends I was travelling with. All 4 members of my immediate family have also had their caricatures done by the same artist in London (Covent Garden), over the course of several years.

More to the point, though, I love to draw, and for preference I always draw portraits. Generally based on photographs - the more detailed the better, so I tend to search through copies of the National Geographic, or through expensive and pretentious magazines, looking for really detailed photographs where all the texture of the skin is visible. I generally work in pencil, ranging from 2B to 9B, although occasionally I have a crack at coloured pencils or watercolour. (If it's watercolour, though, I generally DON'T do people.) Over the past few years, since I've got back into drawing, I've accrued a stack of portraits of total strangers whose faces have captivated me. (I've also had people commision portraits from me, a couple of times, which was rather wonderful and nerve-wracking all at once.)

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

We had to do them in grade school. Light used to make tracing -paper template, then template used to make a black silhouette out of construction paper. I believe my mom still has it.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

we have two gorgeous ones in my house (a shared house that used to be a very fancy private residence), one from 1926 and one from 1936 (same woman made them both) but I'm not sure if they're true silhouettes, or some sort of artistic interpretation of them, as one of the pictures includes a whole musical scene (piano, player, someone else with a flute or the like, and a checkerboard floor.)

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

We actually have a couple of sketches of me at my mom's house--there's a pen and ink sketch of me when I was 3 or 4 I think that I remember nothing of, and a pastel that I remember sitting for--there was a Quaker gathering at Lehigh University that my grandmother took me to when I was 10 or 11, and for some reason that I don't quite remember, I ended up modeling for an art class, and the instructor gave us the pastel s/he'd done of me.

[kinetikatrue]

I'm going to have to ask: Friends General Conference for the Quaker gathering, right? I know it was at Lehigh a time or two in the '80s . . . so, I wonder whether I know your grandmother . . .

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's probably what it was (I knew it wasn't Yearly Meeting, but I was still young enough to not remember what it was exactly).

My grandmother is Elizabeth (Libby) Marsh. She's in Philly now, and has been for maybe 7 years? (I was away either at college or in DC when she moved, so I'm not totally sure about the date), working with the Quaker UN, and as a part of the Peace and Social Concerns Standing Committee of the PYM.

[kinetikatrue]

Ah, well, the name's familiar, but only in a 'familiar Quaker name' sort of way, but, then, my home yearly meeting is BYM, so that's not surprising. Still, the world of Quakerism is not so big, so one has to ask.

Also, too bad you're no longer in DC - there're loads of Young Adult Friendss there if you were interested, and we're always interested in sucking more people in.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Oh, I used to go to meeting fairly frequently when I lived there--I was an attender at Florida Street, and loved the YAF group there. Up here, besides the FUM co-membership of the meetings which annoys me on an intrinsic level, I find the YAF group to be not as well organized. (Which creates a vicious circle--if it was more fun to go to, I'd go more often, and if I went more often, I'd feel moved to organize more YAF activities , and if there were more YAF activities organized, it would be more fun to go to. )

[kinetikatrue]

Heh. I just spent Saturday afternoon at FMW - for Interim Meeting sessions, and one of the topics on the agenda (as it has been for several years now) was the current state of BYM's relationship to FUM. It was terribly, um, interesting. Particularly at the end, when use of logic went right out the window.

As for YAF groups, I rather wish I belonged to one of the meetings with its own, though I've a good many friends scattered througout the YM as a whole (and I'm looking forward to the December conference at Homewood on 'Sharing Out Spiritual Journeys'). Still, I understand that vicious cycle of increasing disinclination - 's like exercise: if you get out there and do it and you remember that it makes you feel good, then you maybe do it more often and it feels even better and so on. But if you don't get out there and do it, then all you remember is how much work it is and how tired you feel after and so you don't do it and don't do it and only keep remembering the annoying bits.

So, er, yeah. Enough of the tortured metaphor.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I really love Cambridge meeting, and I would transfer my membership, but that feels like support of FUM to me, so I haven't been able to do it. This year's NEYM had the FUM talk as well--I think officially the main issue right now is the employment requirements (the 'no sex outside of marriage' bit, specifically, which is probably BYM's issue as well.) One of our former house directors is really pushing the NEYM about it, I think--she also is a product of PYM. The bad thing about growing up in PYM is you expect everything to be liberal and hippie-ish, and it's not.
And I know YAF stuff would easier if I would try. It's just--FMW had a really great outreach for new people, and regular YAF events after meeting (planned potlucks, and unplanned, 'lets go get coffee." Cambridge, they forget I've been going there for three years (and okay, I don't attend as often as I should.), and they do NOTHING organized or otherwise after morning meeting, which in my book is the only sensible time for a sunday meeting, and the organized YAF thing runs up against my twice-monthly house meeting. And yes, I could say, "this is what we're going to do after meetings on sundays," and people probably would do it. But the fact is, I don't feel like I know people well enough to do that. And until I get to spend more time with them, I won't know them well enough. Another vicious cycle.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of the assignments for my painting class in college was a self-portrait. I did mine in monochrome blues, with a field of stars in the background and what looked like a v-necked sequined dress that faded into the field of stars. It was my favorite of the paintings I did, and I thought it was a painting of me and not just a painting of what I look like. It's at my parents' house still, stored in the basement somewhere. Between the color and my non-professional painting skills, it was not the exact replica of my face that you describe. But it was recognizably me, and thinking carefully about what I wanted to show about myself was interesting.

There are also photographs that are pictures of me and not just pictures of what I look like, I think. dd_b has gotten more than one.

My best girl friend from college was fond of having amusement park/boardwalk/etc. caricatures done for awhile. I was not impressed with them. They tended to use stock props rather than props that would have anything to do with gaaldine's personality, and I thought that a good caricature exaggerates the person's features without being mean. These didn't look like an exaggerated version of her to me, they looked like an exaggerated version of someone else. So that seemed pointless to me, but I was glad she enjoyed comparing the different ones she got.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my grands have a silhouette of me at 18 months, which hangs with silhouettes of my parents and godfathers in their dining room. I'm startled by how well it captures what I looked like at that age, but the thing that stands out for my parents and grands was that the silhouette person was impressed at how I sat still for it, when they'd taken for granted that of course I would if they explained it to me.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I remember sitting for my mother to do silhouettes when I was a kid; for a few years when I was very young (younger than 8, as my sister had not yet been born), she did one every year at Christmas. She'd set up in the kitchen, setting a lamp from the living room without its shade on the kitchen table. My brother and I were posed so that our shadows were thrown on the closed door to the laundry room and Mom drew the silhouette. I hated having to sit still for so long; it was boring. I don't know what ever happened to those, but I rather suspect that they're in scrapbooks in my grandmother's closet.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

I know my mum has a pen and ink sketch done of me when I was about 4 by a friend of hers, and I had a sketch done of me when I was about 20 in Edinburgh. I know the former is in a album somewhere, NO idea where the latter is.

[pazlazuli.livejournal.com]

I took a peek at the Richard Serrin Art website. Beautiful.
I have never sat for a portrait, however, when I was a teen my mother had a portrait done of me from a picture and currently my husband is doing one of me from a picture. So... would these be psuedo portraits?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, that picture of my family in the Piazza in Italy was done by working from photographs. Richard visited all of us in our various homes and took photographs of us with our children, and then painted us, setting us in the Piazza. I've never been there myself.