Chasing a likeness - James Bond and Steve Jobs

One of the most crushing things that can ever happen to an artist happened to me this morning. I made the Bond likeness the previous evening and my wife had not seen it. So I showed it to her and she said "...great, who is it?..." I felt my whole world deflate at that moment. I am not ashamed to say I had a real artistic strop and walked off in a huff. After coming down from own hill of indignation I then found out that my wife had never seen any of the Sean Connery Bond movies and only knew Connery from his later work such as Hunt for Red October. So perhaps my deflation was slightly overcome.

But it did get me to think a little about what a likeness is and how we each have a mental image against which we judge these things. With this in mind I made the Steve Jobs likeness this evening. Whilst I was looking at Jobs' many images on an my iPad, somewhat appropriate I thought , I came to realise how, while his face has changed over time, the one thing that always seem to be the same where his eyes which seemed to be brimming with life right to his last product launch not long before his death. For sometime now I have been concentrating only on the eyes and mouth ratio as the basis for any likeness and then let the brain do the rest of the work. Sometimes it works sometime it doesn't but looking at Jobs I have come to realise you also have to try and capture the anima of the person - no small task. - Now if I'm honest I don't think I managed that with the Connery - so perhaps my wife was right in asking - Who is it?

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous