Design Stack: A Blog about Art, Design and Architecture: Expressions in Charcoal Portraits

Charcoal Portraits-Shaoli Huang-www-designstack-co

Charcoal portrait drawings that have something to say, if you are willing to listen.

Shaoli Huang drew all of the likenesses you see on this page.

What I mean by the first sentence is that expressions speak. The message is not always clear, but the direction of the conversation usually is.

You can usually tell if a person looks sad, happy, angry, excited, bored, etc. Sometimes it might not be clear if the person is happy or exited. The person could be bored or sad. There are things that differentiate them, but it might not be as evident sometimes. Whatever the emotion is, it doesn’t usually come with the reason that inspired it.

That is where the skill of the artist and your analytic powers combine to see meaning in portraits and in art in general. I gave drawing 6 the name “An expression of pain”. That might be completely off base, but that is what an expression of pain looks like to me. Now, if it is pain, it doesn’t tell me if it’s pain the person is feeling or if they are empathising with the pain someone else is experiencing.

I hope this makes you want to connect more to these images and art in general.

Ps. I gave the images some titles.