Vector Self Portrait Avatar

I figured I should make my profile picture and avatar an illustrated image of my own face, rather than a photo... This way I'm advertising my wares when I participate in on-line discussion groups.  So here's what I came up with.

Portrait In Vectors

Here's the rest of that portrait I showed you in my last post.  Click the image for a larger view.

Here are my initial sketches.

This is a private commission so I worked very closely with the client to make sure I captured the essence of his loved ones as he sees them.  You can see that there were a few tweaks to the attire and especially the little boy's face shape.  What a great experience!  Shout out to my client...  Thanks for the great project, Jair!

What's the Value of Art?

Someone in a linkedin discussion asked what is the value of making art other than making money.  This got me thinking and I responded with this:

Aside from making money, the value of art is in developing and sharing ideas and emotions.  The medium helps dictate the sort of thought and emotion that can be explored, so the medium itself helps develop new ways of thinking of things.  And this is valuable because it's important to grow and learn and broaden our perspective to make us more savvy decision makers and action takers.

For instance, drawing in vectors makes me think differently than drawing in brush and ink.  I become more methodical and analytical.  Drawing in brush and ink is more intuitive and immediate.  This vector portrait I just made actually comes out looking more soft and natural looking than my ink drawings do, even though the vector image is made completely of hard edge shapes and my ink drawings are made of organic hand made brush strokes.  How ironic!