Philip Roth  I happened across this photo of Philip Roth in an old New Yorker magazine (1aug05, p.75; does not include the photo). It's an excellent image of him as a younger man smoking a cigarette, his hand in perspective that is difficult to capture in a drawing.

The drawing was done in ink. I start most of my drawings of a face near the center, usually on the right eyebrow (subjects right), and work outward. This goes against what I was taught, which is to draw the outline of the head, making sure that the width and height are correct, then estimating the placement of the eyes, the tip of the nose, the mouth, etc. By working outward I judge those locations in relation to each other. You run the risk of making a major error in size or placement of facial parts, but it seems to work ok for me.
posted by Bruce Wright at 10:50 AM #