Making faces

“Dhruv,” an image created in our portrait class in the men’s prison at Byculla Jail, June 2024.

Our men’s class loves drawing faces. We often find portraits of themselves, each other, and their loved ones in their sketchbooks. They are trying to capture joyful memories of their lives outside of prison . Each face is an attempt to stay connected with people while they are physically separated from them.

Placing the nose, eyes and mouth — image created in our portrait class in the men’s prison at Byculla Jail, June 2024.

There are no images or photographs in prison. Students frequently ask us to teach them how to make photorealistic portraits. Portrait artists in the outside world may be struggling to find work in the world where everyone is armed with a camera. But in this place, displaced from moving time and modernity, the art form has renewed relevance and utility.

I started the class by giving students a sheet with printed faces, without any features, and demonstrated the basics of giving them life. I explained some basics proportions and measurements in the construction of a portrait.

They had many technical questions about proportion and measurement. Accuracy was important to them.

I showed them how to vary face types and features, and then introduced expressions — shock, horror, joy — and showed them how different emotions distort the face.