Charcoal Portraiture by Izzy Vera
Izzy Vera is a Denver, Colorado-based artist who keeps a varied artistic practice with a specialized focus on charcoal portraiture. To the artist, portraiture is an intimate process of capturing the subject’s true personality.
Izzy has spent a number of years doing volunteer work in Nepal, offering support for a home in the Kathmandu Valley where 25 children reside. A recent project of hers was to create charcoal portraits of all the children living in the home, later selling postcard prints of the works to raise money to take the children on a trip to a nearby mountain range. While the portraits are simple in composition, each captures a spark of light in the eyes of its subject. The lightly sketched aesthetic adds a touch of the artist’s hand, enforcing the connection between artist and subject.
Izzy's gallery of color charcoal drawings
In our previous feature of Izzy’s portraits of children, we also looked at her color pastel works. These do a great job of utilizing the same lightly sketched, soft edged figures to capture personality in even more detail.
