Inktober 2018 Day 9

We All Know What This Feels Like:

Our brain does a lot of unconscious processing of faces.  We like to see them as intact and symmetrical even when that is not what the raw data would indicate. 

There are a good many apps now available that will morph and distort faces for you. 

Of course, I had to try to draw a face that came by its distortion through multiple viewpoints compressed into one, kind of, intact head. 

It might be a more realistic representation of how I feel this evening than what I actually look like...though I am not an impartial judge.

Inkober 2018 Day 2

Maybe I Just Like It This Way:

As I already pedantically mentioned, for at least a couple of  reasons, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about portraiture, heads and faces. 

At any rate, there was a whole lot of tangential research on many topics ranging from the neurobiology of face processing to the cultural implications of emerging facial recognition software to the world history of non-fine art appearances of the human head- vents, puppets, death masks, shrunken heads...etc, etc, etc.

So it’s going to be “Headtober” I guess... 

And probably just my own effigy, since I can’t in good conscience abuse other people...(except maybe my kids...)

This image is based on the clinical observation that people actually can recognize upside down faces better if the eyes are reversed to right side up. If you doubt the creepiness of this situation, look at the image upside down.

Our brains also have a lot of trouble recognizing faces in unusual light situations- i.e. lighting from below is very troubling. Also creepy.

There is evidence that human brains  mostly like to recognize faces by their overall patterns of light and dark...though maybe once a face is upside down and the pattern is unfamiliar, it helps to have the eyes be out of pattern. 

I’m not a neuroscientist, I just like to read about them, and then prattle on endlessly to folks in my class about it.

Inktober 2018 Day 5

My Own Sidekick

(Self-Ventriloquism)

The creepiness of vents is possibly only matched by the creepiness of some ventriloquists.

While preparing for a class in portrait sculpture this fall, I found myself thinking a bit about those puppets that we are not supposed to call “dummies”.....why are they so creepy? and why do I think they have something to say about representing the human head and portrait sculpture? 

Maybe part of the issue is the human brain’s proclivity to project life and intention on inanimate objects? Puppets often come off as more lively than their masters. The vent is usually the one with the boundary-pushing funny lines, while the “real person” is the boring straight man

(If this topic interests you at all, google Nina Conti and/or the movie “Her Master’s Voice” for some meta-ventriloquism material.)

I’ve made a lot of real world sculptural effigies of myself, but never a puppet with a hinged jaw. 

Perhaps just as well, I would be too easily upstaged. 

Inktober 2018 Day 6

It Has Become Difficult to Sleep Through the Night :

Yes, it is only the 6th day of October, and I am already falling behind on the posts.

I have some drivel to add to this one, but it is too late tonight, so I will just leave to assume I have some interesting thoughts ...about this image...or about anything...

Inktober 2018 Day 8

The Cure for Impostor Syndrome

Why is a mask so much more disturbing when you can see the person underneath? Often, masks reveal the wearer’s eyes. I thought perhaps revealed teeth might be a nice addition. 

My kids and spouse agreed that this drawing is more upsetting than the ones that came before it. 

Maybe that is an accomplishment?

Speaking of accomplishment, or the lack thereof, I definitely have had my share of impostor syndrome....particularly when teaching...(or even parenting...when are those real parents going to show up?)

But one just has to put on the mask and pretend to be the real deal.

Inktober 2018 Day 7

Problems With Depth Perception:

Human eyes are pretty distinctive because of the amount of sclera (white) in relation to iris and pupil. Evolutionary biologists have theorized that the large white is there to help us see one another’s gaze and read all of the important social information contained within it. 

As my younger son helpfully pointed out, the multiple eye meme is way played out. Many people have painted additional eyes on their faces, or just photoshopped on an extra set or two. 

But pedant that I am, I have to point out that most of these multiple eye iterations don’t consider where all those eyes are gazing.  

If you had multiple eyes, would you use them all to look at one thing, or to send one message?

Fun fact: I pretty much have monocular vision. Both of my two eyes work, but my brain only talks to one of them regularly. When I was a child, the unused eye used to wander, and had to be taught to follow the other one. 

While I was a child, I could never figure out why it was so important to my parents that I keep the recessive eye following the dominant one. Of course, later I was grateful that they insisted, as wandering eyes can be....distracting.

While studying sculpture in college, I had a lot of anxiety about my monocular vision. Could I really make three dimensional work if I couldn’t actually see three dimensions? 

I hope the answer is yes.

But if I had eight eyes, who knows?

Inktober 2018 Day 4

Solutions To Problems I Didn’t Even Know I Had:

It seems that our ability to recognize faces is mostly based on overall patterns and not the particular facial features. But most verbal descriptions (and police sketch artists) rely on the type of features because it’s pretty hard to verbalize the pattern rather than, say, “she has a big nose.” 

I read that there are face feature kits, so one can assemble the face of a criminal from various parts.  But I also read that the success rate with such kits is low. (Eigenfaces work better...but maybe more on those later in the month)

But clearly, as far as self portraits go, all it takes is a bit of feature displacement for the whole thing to go off the rails. 

(My kind spouse recently got a new printer - with all the ink cartridges! So I was able to print out a large unflattering (so say I) photo of my face)

Inktober 2018 Day 3

At Least I Have A Boyfriend:

Researchers report that human brains are incredibly good at discerning whether a face is male or female in a split second, though it is hard to articulate how.

Like previous studies of difference between races, I suspect that these results have something to do with the underlying assumptions behind the research. 

This image was inspired by the thankfully bygone meme of “underbeard selfies,” and how unfamiliar head parts become when viewed from an odd angle.

But my younger son referred to this drawing as “your self portrait with a cat on your head” so perhaps I was not very successful.

Scary cat though.

Inktober 2018

Not a Napkin:

Inktober 2018 Day1 I am afraid.

We lost a good many followers during previous Inktobers when I drew weird things that were not recognizable characters or fan art.

My apologies, once again.

I do see inktober as an opportunity to make myself draw some things in ink, not on napkins, at the somewhat uncomfortable pace of one per day.

I’ve been doing a lot of research about portraiture and heads and the various distortions that happen perceptually, biologically and formally...so that might be the topic.  

I know that sounds really bad.

I will do my best to work in some velociraptors and superheroes also.

Trollhunters’ Galadrigal Brothers

Old Troll Bros:

Our younger son had an bit of an upper respiratory thing that made it arguably necessary for him to stay home from school last Monday...which allowed him to watch a whole lot of Trollhunters on Netflix. 

Since he has aged a bit out of the “Mom has to sit next to me on the couch and watch every thing with me, preferably while giving me a foot rub or a back rub” model, (though that doesn’t mean he won’t ask anyway...repeatedly) I saw very little of this Trollhunters show myself. 

But I did notice that one of the main troll characters is voiced by Kelsey Grammer (known only to our kids for his Sideshow Bobness) and that his often antagonistic brother is voiced by the more-relevant-to-adolescent-boys Mark Hamill.

My younger son observed me drawing this napkin back on September 25th, which was, coincidentally, Mr. Hamill’s birthday. He remarked, “it seems like more people are posting things today for Mark Hamill’s birthday because he is getting SO old.” ... 

Dramatic pause...then the inevitable follow up question: 

“Wait, Mom, is he as old as you are?” 

My son was dubious that it was possible that I could be younger. I pointed out that I was a child when the original Star Wars movie was released, and while Mr. Hamill was a young man at the time, he was clearly not in grammer school.

Remarkably, I am also younger than Sideshow Bob. 

Laughing Skull

I’ll be entering your dreams tonight in the form of a laughing skull:

Our younger son very much enjoyed Matt Groening’s “Disenchantment” on Netflix. This was not exactly a surprise as he has watched much more of “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” than is appropriate for his age. Most of his cultural and historical references seem to have been filtered through one or the other of those two shows.

Disenchantment definitely works a similar vein of dark humor. The above quote comes from Luci, the personal demon of the show’s main character.

Luci is most often mistaken for a cat, not a dog, and we never get to see the skull, so this napkin is a bit of a departure.

But I figured if I were going to draw a dream skull, it might as well be on a cute dog.

The result, however.... definitely not so cute.

End of Summer Napkin Portrait

Mother and (Absent) Sons:

Posing for the napkin portrait for this year was slightly less compelling than various other screen based activities.

I might have anticipated this as the kids would have barely appeared beyond the edges of the napkin...but I was hoping to have some hair protruding on either side.

Maybe next year...

Ha.

(Somehow I neglected to post this one and a few others earlier this month, so my apologies for the time lag)

Napkin Self Portrait

Dysfunctional Napkin Selfie:

I try to do napkin portraits of myself & kids at the end of the summer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about portraits generally

...and how things that don’t quite work can be more interesting than a “good” likeness- 

particularly when it comes to my own geriatric face

Live Action Naked Mole Rat

“My dad’s allergic to every kind of fur...”

Ron Stoppable and his pet Rufus the naked mole rat from “Kim Possible”

Our younger son was a bit of a Kim Possible fan in his younger youth despite the fact that the show ended in the year of his birth. It was one of Disney Channel’s most successful animated shows until the advent of Phineas and Ferb five years later.

Our son informs me that a live action version is in the offing. Images of the non animated Kim are easily found online.

We have to wonder, however, about Kim’s sidekick Ron’s companion Rufus. The naked mole rat is kind of cute in the animated series...cute for a naked mole rat anyway.

As we have the same problem as Ron-Dad is allergic  to most furry things- our son suggested that maybe we should get a cute pet like Rufus. 

I felt compelled to illustrate what Rufus might look like in a live action version. 

Unsurprisingly, the naked mole rat enthusiasm has passed. 

Baby Heads

Fortnite Skins

Upgraded in Pink:

Our kids found the upgraded versions of the Drift and Ragnorak skins in Fortnite pretty compelling.

But my younger son tells me that the pink version of Ragnorak depicted here is just fan art and it should be blue.

This was a quick sketch cludged together in the morning before departure for camp, so accuracy was not at an all time high. 

Inari Fox Selfie

Things are cuter and more furry on the internet:

We had some conversation about whether the “Inari fox” pictures you see passed around online are “real”... i.e. pictures of real animals. 

As you might imagine, no, they are not real animals, but they are real objects made by @santaniel_toys.

But if they were real, you would definitely bring one to summer camp and take a selfie with it.

Robot and Son

We’ve been enjoying reading “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown on the subway to summer camp. A robot named Roz who is shipwrecked on an island populated by animals becomes the mother of a gosling. 

In my son’s action movie universe, the second act of the story would probably involve the revelation that Roz the maternal robot was actually a high tech killing machine from a future timeline, and she would have to use her previously hidden weaponry to save the island’s residents from an interdimensional menace. Many explosions would ensue. 

We haven’t finished the book yet, but I am pretty sure that is not what is going to happen. 

After looking at this napkin, my son told me that he envisioned Roz as looking more like Futurama’s Bender than the Terminator.

Bender would have been easier to draw.