29 Faces September 2016 Challenge – Meryl Streep

"Meryl Streep," Graphite Pencil, by Dayna Winters. Copyright 2016.

So, the 29 Faces September 2016 is here, and I’m back at the drawing board again in an effort to try and meet the challenge. Of course, doing any art at all and blogging about it is the real challenge, whether or not you actually meet the 29 Faces count.  So without further ado…my first drawing is an attempt at Meryl Streep.

Streep has always been an actress I’ve appreciated, especially for how flexible she is with her acting and roles. I liked the movie She-Devil where she co-stars with Rosanne Barr, who plays a Ruth: worn out, tired housewife trying to please her husband Bob (played by Ed Begley, Jr) any way possible. Streep plays Mary Fisher, the glamorous writer and mistress who ends up getting her just rewards when the Bob ends up cheating on her and treating her just like his wife.

I also enjoyed the reincarnation/live evaluation theme in the 1991 film Defending Your Life, where she is a woman in limbo trying to get into Heaven; here she must go through a trial to review all she did in her life. Those who are on trial have their life actions evaluated. If considered exceptional, those living good lives could move onto heaven while those who had lives that were less than extraordinary or wholesome would reincarnate in an effort to get it right. 

Even better was the 1992 release of Death Becomes Her where she costars along with Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis; this film is a hysterical dark comedy where Streep is an aging actress having considerable difficulty accepting the fact that she is getting older and that age is affecting her looks. She takes a potion given to her that promises to keep her young and alive forever, but not without later being forced to face dire consequences for defying the natural order of things.

The Manchurian Candidate, where so co-stars with Denzel Washington, is a film featuring Streep as a vindictive senator and mother of a son running for vice president. The film is one of many showing Streep’s extensive acting skills and how easily she moves from a dark comedic roll, to a more dramatic one, all without missing a beat.  I’ve also seen and appreciated The Devil Wears Prada, Mastering the Art of French Cooking wear she played the role of Julie Child, and the most recent film I watched was It's Complicated where Streep co-starred with Steve Martin and Alex Baldwin (A great film if you are looking for some highly comedic moments).

On a final note, one of my favorite quotes by Streep is: “Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time. - Meryl Streep.”

When attempting to draw Meryl, I think the cheekbones and facial structure was the most challenging, but overall I am satisfied with the result. I chose graphite pencil for the drawing simply because I enjoy doing pencil sketches and attempting to give the image some varying degrees of depth and shading with a single color rather than multiple colors. Of course, I enjoy colored pencils too J, but I am perfectly content drawing with plain pencil any day of the week.