I was very fortunate to be the subject of an article that appeared in American Artist: Drawing magazine. This piece was done by New York writer Edith Zimmerman and appeared in the Summer, 2006 issue. The title is “Understanding Faces From the Inside Out”.
Here’s the full article.
In 2004, I was interviewed for the Houston Chronicle by reporter Evan Moore for an article that appeared in the Sunday supplement magazine called “Texas”. Mr. Moore had a genuine interest in the field of forensic art which resulted in a story that helped to bring positive attention to the field at large. Interviews of this type provide the opportunity to alert members of the general public about the benefits of this work. It also helps citizens to understand the unique efforts made by law enforcement personnel for the sake of public safety.
Here’s a link to the complete article.
Over the years, I have drawn literally thousands of faces of criminals in my role as a forensic artist. Until this project came along, I had never really given the concept of idealized beauty much thought.
Sketch I prepared like a police composite sketch, based on the verbal description of Dr. Nancy Etcoff
Then, I was contacted by renowned cognitive psychologist and researcher Dr. Nancy Etcoff, a professor of neuropsychology at Harvard Medical School. She indicated that she had read the discussions of facial proportion in my textbook Forensic Art and Illustration. She asked that I draw the face of “idealized female beauty” based on her verbal description, much like a police composite sketch. This idealized face of “beauty” was done for a television feature production entitled Survival of the Prettiest based on Dr. Etcoff’s book of the same name. California-based Termite Art Productions developed the hour-long program for the Discovery Channel.
Dr. Etcoff and I conferred on camera to arrive at this universal “template face” of beauty in conjunction with Etcoff’s belief that physical attraction is innate and biologically-based rather than learned behavior.
There are many fascinating concepts conveyed in Dr. Etcoff’s book concerning our societal perceptions of attractiveness and their implications. Some quotes I find particularly significant include:
“When abused children under court protection were studied in California and Massachusetts, it turned out that a disproportionate number of them were unattractive.”
“Good-looking adults are more likely to get away with anything from shoplifting to cheating on exams to committing serious crimes.”
Though my only requested task was the black and white “template” sketch, I grabbed some sheets of transparent paper and did an experiment. I placed sheets of drawing vellum over the “ideal” template and did very generalized portraits of several famous female faces. In each case, the face seemed to perfectly fit the template, even when I used beauties of differing ancestries. I did sketches that roughly represented Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Halle Berry, Lucy Liu and Vanessa Williams. Dr. Etcoff felt that these sketches further emphasized her concepts about a universally held idea of beauty and they were included as part of the television production.
Generalized sketches of the faces of five women considered to be beautiful, who all fit the template
Here is an animation of the celebrity faces over the template.
Facial template I created that fits the classic beauties Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Halle Berry, Lucy Lui and Vanessa Williams
I am SO very honored to say that there is an article about my work in the 1st quarter – 2014 edition of The Art of the Portrait, which is the publication of the Portrait Society of America. My heartfelt thanks go to Chris Saper Heirloom & Corporate Portraiture for writing the piece.
I am delighted to see forensic art “crossover” in this way since it encourages greater attention toward the field. Here is a clip of one of my interview responses in that regard:
Karen T. Taylor, Facial Images 