Old Guy

I’m writing this a few years after finishing the piece.

I’m interested in looking at people and trying to capture who someone is. I don’t have models, so I usually work either from imagination or from photographs. Photographs allow a kind of distance that can help, but I’m also strongly wanting to shy away from photorealism.

The process here was simple: I made a quick line drawing from a photo reference and then used that outline to build the finished painting.

I didn’t correct anything after the initial line which created the expressive qualities I was after.

The reference image came from a documentary. An older man was sitting next to his wife of many years, supporting her while she described the trauma of being inseminated by a doctor with someone else’s sperm. He just sat there with a look that seemed to say: I raised this kid, and I wasn’t the biological father.

I think I captured that expression.

The drawing itself feels solid to me. The figure has some raw character, and the pencil mark making is strong in my opinion.

This was also one of the only pieces I made over a period of several years. I was unhappy and stressed by work. Now, when I look at this piece it represents for me that period of my life.