The Everything Portraiture Project

Yes, the Everything Portraiture Project has returned! The chance to have a rank amateur sketch your craggy, windswept features! Trust me, I need the practice. And now it's slightly different, in that this time, it will actually work.

Here are the rules :

You must send me physical media. I refuse to work off of a monitor. I have no color printer, so printouts can be a bad thing. There is no substitute for film stock. I will return or destroy the picture at your request.

You will probably receive the original - but maybe not. If, by some fluke, the portrait turns out exceedingly well, then I get to keep the original. But the criteria for that is simple - I must make what I judge to be a 'groundbreaking' leap in technique or style. That last happened in 1993. You'll probably get the original.

You must pay your own postage, and nothing else. That can't be much - less than a dollar, I bet. I'll take care of the postage for the finished portrait.

The finished work will be either ink or pencil, roughly the size of a normal sheet of paper. Sorry. I don't do color, and I don't want to work on something poster-size. The finished size will probably be close to 10 by 12. You'll have to use your local Kinko's to blow up the picture if you want more. If I use pencil, I'll see if I can send it in a plastic slip or something - I don't want the graphite to rub off.

Nothing but faces! Sure, I won't mind if you send some mindbendingly lascivious shot of yourself and your significant other conducting... experiments... on film. But don't expect me to do anything with it.

No demands. Sure, you can ask me for things, but don't expect me to do all of them. You aren't paying me anything, so I feel no obligation to follow your every last command. That being said, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

And that's it, really. Make sure to send your chosen picture to :

Ken Teague
1121 Ninth Street, Apartment B
New Orleans, Louisiana 70115

And give a return address, please!

Dateline 27 January 2001 : the first portrait has been sumbitted! Yay stand/alone/bitch!

25 February 2001 - The second portrait has now been sent... pukesick is the lucky winner!

I would like to offer my services to this node also, only in the digital realm.

This would be the perfect way to get real world pictures to try out minor touching up. I need alot of practice in this area, and i would like to get good at it. I will take pretty much any sort of a picture and work with it.

• Resolution: The more the better. DPI is important also. Don't spare me a minutes download of a picture because of compression, send me a full on JPG (100%), zipped PSD, zipped bitmap, etc. GIF's will not be accepted. Anything along the lines of 640x480 and above will be accepted, however be aware that at 640x480 modifications can be seen by the naked eye alot easier (if you are looking for them, they will be there) Anything below 640x480 will not be considered. I have alot of ram and powerful software.
• What i can do: Moles, acne, blemishes, wrinkles, tan lines (~), adding/removing a tan (~), alot of stuff like that. I can whiten the eyes and redden/enhance the lips, things like that. I could probably remove an empty peircing (ear lobe w/o a ring in it). Don't be afraid to ask me if i will do something. Confidentiality is assured. (~ means it's iffy, we'll talk)
• What i can't/won't do: Add or remove clothing. I will work with images which are, err, missing, clothing, so long as it is mildly tasteful. The female figure is a beautiful thing. Hair is a very hard thing to work with, but it can be done if it is a small amount. Use your judgement on things you send, but don't be afraid to ask.
• Hard copies: Tell me what you want, i will make it happen, within reason. 640x480 doesn't make a poster, and 1280x1024 poster isn't going to be free :) I will mail it to you, whatever. Compensation is nice for hard copies, ink and or kinkos is expensive (i have a standard 8.5x11 printer) . Anything i email you (tell me how you want it) is free obviously, bandwidth is cheap.
• i will scan: I have a decent resolution HP scanner, although sometimes it really, really, distorts colour. If this is the case i can run it to kinkos or something (or you could, saves me the trouble :) If it's not a picture you want the people at kinkos seeing (but don't mind this perfect stranger seeing, maybe because i can't make eye contact?) send it my way, and ill see if it will scan (50% chance colour, 90% B&W), Photoshop can do colour correction, however for the kind the scanner does it can make the pictures look somewhat over or under exposed.

Contact: hawk@hawknetworks.com, put something in the subject about E2 or portraiture or whatnot. Please don't send me images until you confirm it with me. Odds are i will accept. So-ya-know, i do prefer working with images of female(s), although i will do guys. Just ask me.

Yay is an understatement, I'm pretty sure.

I love getting mail from noders, (who doesn't?) and discofever mentioned he'd sent me something in reply to a postcard I sent a li'l bit ago. I didn't expect it to be a portrait, though, because I thought I'd specifically mentioned that the picture of myself that I'd used for a postcard was not one to be used for the portrait. (It's not one I'd present to someone for their first impressions.)

I'm glad Ken ignored/disregarded/misunderstood, because frankly, looking good can be plain boring, and 'sides, this thing he drew for me is infinitely better than any I'm going to ever get, for the simple reason that I don't think I'll be sneering at the next person I get to draw my portrait. And really, this shows so much that I rather like it.

He's good, better than me (which likely doesn't say much), service was prompt and the picture came packaged well, and it came with some words which was a nice plus, and now it's smack dab in the middle of the wall where I have tacked all my noder mail.

I dig it. Thanks.