Zed A. Shaw, Painter

Now, this pigeon teachers was driving me nuts because she would walk around to my easel, see my drawing, then "correct" it. But, remember she sat down and looked up at people? My terrible 20 second artrage sketch, the left is what she saw, right is what I saw. Very different.pic.twitter.com/mWc70tlqjt

She would come along though and tell me to move the eyes up to basically where the model's crown on the forehead was. I was baffled, like, doesn't she know the eyes aren't on people foreheads? Then I started studying really what she was doing and it was fascinating.pic.twitter.com/SMvbi1J2LJ

The first thing I figured out is she learned this very simplistic formula of "the eyes are always in the center of the head." This is actually not even close except in people with hair, directly facing you. Move even a tiny inch in any direction and this measure is off.pic.twitter.com/gkBJO8rZKd

The more accurate formula--which has been used at least since Michelangelo and Davinci--is divide the head into 3rd of brow line, nose, bottom of lip. This works better because you can see it no matter how the head is tilted since it uses landmarks that are always visible.pic.twitter.com/hof053eHL2

Now, if someone's head is tilted back because you are *under* their head, then there's foreshortening that causes these three lines to go toward the top of the head. The head also more of a ball on top of a cylinder (cranium on jaw/face), so it shortens in the face, but not head.pic.twitter.com/ATFrUjJEfE

And if you're above someone then the reverse happens. These three lines move down, shorten, the chin disappears as the facial column falls away, and you see most of the cranium.pic.twitter.com/UZHJDGe28k