Darele Bisquerra

DRAWING STUDIES

It is only recently that I have dedicated time and effort into exploring graphite as a means to describe human features. I have been more familiar, and therefore more comfortable, with charcoal in the past as it allows for deep, velvety black tones for high contrast and expression.

Now I see potential in the subtleties of graphite gray tones with a range of paper textures as tools to investigate form, light & shadow to describe trait details in preparation for a portrait.

I am so grateful for the time spent at the Académie des Beaux-Arts Montréal (Romina Sol Catanzaro, co-founder) and with the lively group who learned so much from each other and from our new guide, Frederick Bellavance.

Each feature separately
I am ready to draw

To dance with an eye socket
To pause with a lip crease
To consider a nostril

This i could continue through tornados
Calm, pleased, inquisitive
While media blares around me

Each feature, an architecture
I can now enjoy

To tiptoe a supercillious brow
To voyage a pinna's outer ear
To rappel a maxillo-mandible

I am a happy wanderer
And a well-equpped climber

My boulé-on
Is sharpened graphite
My carabiner
Is a clean eraser

Single & special
Each feature, a playground
With sly identity
A carousel in an unnamed park

The pressure of likeness
Is resting inside the King's courtyard
Where scribes in dull outfits
Mark their aged clipboards
To keep us in line

Each feature alone a commoner's wealth
A freeing delight
And i am relieved to play outside

This escape hatch invigorates
Neither drains nor
Feeds fear of flaw

This novel spar creates theater
Of sculpted stage sets
Giant noses to explore

This focus allows perception
Of 10,000 details
Otherwise ignored

Each feature an intriguing gift
Substance or symbol
Semantics or surface

For these specifics i am ready

But leave the full portrait in the spa
Til it is washed from dusty burden
Of classic expectation