This was a commissioned piece, photo provided by the client. It also is smaller than I should probably work for this type of drawing… I cannot get the detail I’m accustomed to getting, and it is difficult for me to place things just so.
I have a mild form of prosopagnosia, which means I have a lot of trouble recognising people using only their faces. Prosopagnosiacs learn to recognise people by their hair, glasses, clothing, gait, voice, and other such clues. It is not that we cannot see eyes, nose, mouth, etc., simply that we cannot discern the subtle differences in each individual. It’s similar to you trying to you trying to identify one guppy in a school. You can see all the features, but all the guppies look the same! Unless one has some very distinctive feature.
So imagine how I felt when this commission came along and I wasn’t even sure which man was standing in front of me.
Luckily, my proso is mild. This means that I can learn faces given enough time / exposure. It also helped that one of the men is famous, so I was able to find photos online to help me learn his face.
In the end, it was a success. The commissioner was happy, I was happy, everyone was happy.
Art by Tina Hickman 