Study Man's Head for Lovers Jumping
In art, like life, eudaemonia (a flourishing sense of happiness and well-being) is extraordinarily difficult to attain and keep. It is easy to kill the energy, if it is overworked the smile can easily turn into a grimace, the opposite of the goal. An interesting element to this drawing is that you can see the egg shape of the head, from chin to back of head there are faint lines of the egg and access line. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Vermeer, and Picasso use this device. LOL, he has a great quote about it:
When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
Picasso
It is one of the great elegant ways of starting a head.
It enables the artist to not get lost in the complexity of the portrait's details. In general the eye sockets are at the halfway mark. Going back to the feeling of his expression, I have a subconscious (until I think about it) check list: the forms have to work, move through space, the contour lines have to likewise rotate through space, there has to be the right light and shadows, proportions have to be spot on, and the perspective, there has to be a few lively accents, and the tilt of the head has to feel right.
I hope this sketch brings out in you a sense of joy.
This piece was just uploaded to my archive and available work site. https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/michael-newberry/artwork/study-man-s-head-for-lovers-jumping
Michael, Idyllwild, 11/22/2021