I have copied this over from my Art Blog, as it’s not just about art really this, but also about the weirdness of the modern world.

Portraiture and Botox
When I went to art school many years ago, well before the advance of digital media, a popular medium for life drawing and portraiture was the use of pencil and charcoal. Pencil work, particularly involving very fine detail became a speciality for me, and I developed a sort of ‘photographic’ style. Not loved by my tutors I hasten to add, as a more bold, dynamic and more contemporary approach was generally favoured at the time. I didn’t care.

Anyway, though I don’t do so much of it now, particularly life drawing and nude studies (too much of it at art school made me hate it), I had been asked recently by someone if I would be interested in a portrait commision, using pencil in a detailed and fine art style. However, when I said I might be, and that I may need to do some studies first and take some photos etc, my subject then said, to my amazement, that she may want to have some Botox filling in done. I thought initially that she was joking, and to my dismay, she wasn’t.

I tried to point out why this was not a good idea. My argument was such. Botox carries with it a recognisable signature. It distorts and interferes with the dynamic of the face, and also changes the texture and patina of the skin. I myself can spot even a skillfully Botoxed face a mile away. This may be due to being an artist and because for so many years, study of physiognamy was very important to me, and still is.

She wasn’t convinced, and I realised that what she wanted was not in fact a portrait in the traditional sense that would capture an impression of self, but a photographic representation (why she didn’t just get a photographic portrait done I don’t know). I then told her that I could do a piece digitally using a photograph of her face, and do a ‘paint over’ with my Wacom (tablet and stylus), and that she needn’t go to the extreme of having her face injected. She said she would ‘think it over’.

I thought a lot about this. I know in Hollywood there is a backlash against the use of Botox as it intereferes with an actors ability to deliver facial ‘nuance’. But, it also bothered me that this woman felt the need to undergo what in my opinion is still a pretty radical and untested (in the sense that there is as yet no evidence of potential side effects from long term use, as it it still so new) procedure just because she wanted to look good for a drawing!!!

Strange world!