Friday 5 August 2011

Creating a likeness.

Here are a couple of recent Conti Crayon Portraits, one of Paddy and one of Helen.


Paddy

Helen
 In them I was trying to get a likeness and also depict some of the character of the two ladies.

Dr Charlie Frowd is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire. He is also trying to get a likeness by improving the quality of facial composites. These are pictures of crime suspects used by the police to identify criminals the sort of thing you see in newspapers. Dr Frowd has developed a new way of generating these composites called EvoFIT using computer software to morph the face.
An example of an EvoFIT and a composite construct of a famous face is shown below.


EvoFIT

Composite

Can you identify this man?

My Conti Crayons cost £3 Dr Frowd’s system cost around £500,0000 and he spent ten years engineering the computerised technique.
So I have another five years of learning before I match the time he has spend trying to get a likeness.

In a newspaper interview with The Chorley Citizen he said:
"Its uses are endless but one example of how it could also be used commercially is to predict how a child could look using a picture of the parents to breed them together to produce the offspring'. "We are very excited to see where this will go."
Science and art make dangerous bedfellows.

4 comments:

TinaCollins said...

Really nice handling of the media Dave, the light and the subtelty are excellent on these and Paddy is awesome although only you will know how good the likeness is. Really very competent people pictures. I read recently about poetry before journalism being an artistic goal and that rang a bell with me. You've captured the poetry thats for sure and I am quite sure your subject would be more identifiable than those £500k identikit pieces. I love technology but even more I love the fact it will never replace what a real person can do.

Journeyman said...

Yes I was looking into way of getting a resemblance when I came across the Dr and his research. As you say Tina hopefully computers will never replace people, I think they should employ artist. Last week I put there two portraits into a charity auction and Helen sold, though I think Paddy was the better drawing.

Thomas Haskett said...

Lovely portraits Dave, how long were the poses? Glad you sold one too.

"to predict how a child could look" I find the commercial implications of this system rather ominous, given the current potential for 'designer babies'!

My life drawing tutor used to draw with a lump of (soft) terracotta, and achieved a great diversity of line quality and tone.

Journeyman said...

They are both from the Tenby group Tom, the session is two hours and both models are very professional sitters so they are a treat to draw. Yes the Brave New World feel to that quote is very disturbing as is the commercial thinking behind it.
I’ve got some Lump Sanguine which is a natural rock I wonder if it’s anything like your tutor used. It can be blended and also worked with water.

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