Liv a little…
From biro and charcoal sketches to oil painting, we celebrate actress and model Liv Tyler and how her eternal grace crowns her as a beauty icon for the ages.
Alicia Silverstone, Drew Barrymore, Winona Ryder, Kate Moss, Lisa Bonet, Claire Danes and Natalie Portman. The 1990s saw a new crop of it-girls, a group of actresses and models who changed the face of fashion and popular culture with their style both on and off-screen. At a time where grunge took over hair-metal, less became more, and the legend of the supermodel was at its peak, these 90s icons amalgamated popular styles of the time to appeal to 90s youth. Where tartan was sported by both Kurt Cobain and Cher Horowitz, and minimalist glam was fully embraced by Kate Moss and Claire Danes, the 90s saw many trends embraced by these iconic women.
However one it-girl truly stands the test of time and that is none other than Liv Tyler. Daughter of singer/model Bebe Buell and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, Liv was already destined for greatness coming from two iconic 70s figures. Gracing the covers of Seventeen Magazine and Rolling Stone as well as iconic 90s films such as Empire Records, Stealing Beauty and Armageddon, Liv’s unique beauty, style and infectious personality set her apart from other it-girls of the time. Today, she seems more graceful and charming than ever. I recently watched her beauty routine with Vogue and she not only reminded me why I looked up to her as a young’un but my admiration for her as a woman only grew stronger (in other words yasss queen u betta werk 😩). Oozing with class and fostering an old Hollywood allure she has proven to the fashion world today that she will never go out of style.
As a way to improve my drawing and painting techniques, I decided to use Liv as the subject for a few sketches. Personally, I’ve found to invest a lot more energy and time into improving my skills when it’s a subject I’m sincerely interested in. This may be controversial to some artists, as some will contest that you must learn fundamentals and then you will be prepared to draw anything. As I have tried this method and wish to try it again soon, I chose to follow instinct and emotion and act immediately upon inspiration (in short I’ll do what I like and it’s fine :)). I decided to use this approach as it’s sort of a muse-related technique, basically an excuse to rewatch Empire Records and Armageddon for the 400th time.
So I first experimented with biro and used images taken by Jonathan Glynn-Smith. Taking my time, using light cross-hatching marks and leaving areas unfinished (mainly because I can’t draw hair to save my life) I was quite happy with the end result. Moving from biro to charcoal I used a screenshot from Empire Records as my reference and again took my time to make up the lines and proportions. They’re not accurate however it was nice to force myself to slow down and not rush to make details in the first few steps. From here I used the same reference to try a monochromatic oil painting and push myself further from one medium to another. What you see is a few days of work and layering and it’s a fair step forward to more oil experimentation.
Of course as an artist I’m nowhere near reaching accuracy but I’ve found this series of experimentations quite beneficial. Having a muse or a subject that you’re interested in at first is great way to get back into art and realise why you love it. Of course finding random and unfamiliar inspiration is a beautiful way to open your mind to new ideas and styles, however in this instance where I’ve been feeling frustrated with my progress and I found using inspiration that I already loved gave me more time and patience.
