Louis David Riel (1844–1885)
digital hand-rendering
9" x 12" at 720 ppi • 2019
In the late spring of 2019, I was wrapping up a long-term project illustrating key portraits for Heartland Associates' The Department of Anesthesia, University of Manitoba: A Fifty-Year Retrospective, 1967-2017 book. In the course of creating the seven detailed and highly (albeit subtly) stylized images, I developed a methodology for creating portraits that has proven useful up to the very present.
Having shared much of the work on social media, I was contacted by an old friend who also happens to be a tremendously successful musician. Glenn Patscha, originally from Winnipeg, studied with Ellis Marsalis and Harold Battiste at the University of New Orleans and went on to perform/record/tour with, score for, and/or produce Marianne Faithfull, Levon Helm, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Loudon Wainwright, and Bonnie Raitt—among many others—along with his own groups Ollabelle and The Big Bright. Glenn was thinking of creating a sort of tribute wall to various heroes and icons, and was inspired to commission a portrait of Louis Riel, the founder and first Premier of Manitoba, in the style of my Anesthesia Department works for it.
Louis David Riel (22nd October, 1844–16th November, 1885) was a Canadian politician and a political leader of the Métis people. He led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. Riel sought to defend Métis rights and identity as what was then the Northwest Territories came under increasing Canadian influence. Defeated at the Battle of Batoche, Riel was imprisoned in Regina, Saskatchewan where he was convicted of high treason. Despite protests, popular appeals, and the jury's call for clemency, Riel was executed by hanging.
Riel's legendary status has only grown throughout the years, and he remains a charismatic and divisive figure both in Manitoba—where he is largely regarded as a great hero—and the country as a whole.
from left: my portrait of Dr. Eric Jacobsohn from Heartland Associates' Department of Anesthesia retrospective • iconic 1873 photograph of Riel by I. Bennetto
The studio portrait by I. Bennetto & Co. of Winnipeg, usually dated 1873, has for many years been the de-facto standard image of Louis Riel. However both Glenn and I were concerned that it presented him rather tenebrously, with a pinched brow and hunted look befitting a man sorely encumbered. Also, the Bennetto portrait is virtually ubiquitous—why invest time and effort to create yet another iteration of it? So I set about unearthing some historical image both rare and of a certain spirit. Glenn was very particular in wanting something original, rather than a mere rendering of extant photography. What I proposed, then, was the creation of a "new" historical image fusing aspects of disparate sources into a portrait at once both physically accurate and of novel disposition.
Looking at available photographs, I was struck by Riel's almost beatific expression in a much less familiar (and presumably older) studio portrait. It was decided that I should harmonize it with the 1873 image by matching the Métis leader's hair and costume, and thus create a sort of "lost" alternate image to the Bennetto classic.
Now, the standard image is what we today would call low-resolution, with marginal detail, a pronounced grain, flat shadows, and blown-out hilights. It was therefore incumbent on me to find outside sources for the hair and shading, so I looked at the whiskers of a wide range of suitable men from Burton Cummings to Nick Offerman, and fielded individuals from Jim Morrison to Michael Landon regarding hairstyles, ultimately (and perhaps ironically) pinpointing Henry "Superman" Cavill and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as having features most closely resembling Riel's circa 1873.
from left: earlier studio portrait on which my drawing was based • Henry Cavill's moustache,
Justin Trudeau's hair
The first step in my portrait methodology is putting a line on every distinct edge and upon every hair as scaled to the line's width. The lines must all begin or end with either a tapered point, a roughly perpendicular cut, or some amalgamation of them—and all line interactions should result in a balanced abstract shape with clean, straight edges and internal gaps not much narrower than the width of the nib. No line should ever be left untailored or interaction unworked insofar as it may be successful as a tiny little random aesthetic figure in its own right.
The lines have to do all of that while also accurately describing an object in space and making a satisfactory overall picture, neither drawing attention to themselves nor achieving aesthetic harmony at the subject's expense. This approach to gesture owes a debt to Voïvod drummer and legendary chthonian inksmith Michel "Away" Langevin, whose recent work makes a very similar use of line—albeit on a totally different scale. I was playing The Wake and Post Society on a loop while illustrating the anesthesia book, and really internalized some aspects of his work.
from left: cover art from Voïvod's The Wake, © 2018 Michel "Away" Langevin; Fair Use citation for reference purposes • close-up of stylized linework on an Anesthesia portrait
below: the toned line art from my portrait of Louis Riel
Next, I go over the line plate with a large, diffuse white brush at very low opacity to add tonal dynamics to it. After that I close-cut the image and fill its outline with a flat, neutral gray tone, lightly textured, and shade it using techniques based on graphite, pencil crayon, charcoal, and ink wash. Lastly I add hilights to fill out the tonal range, and add a few layers of texture by way of finishing. The overall effect has an intriguingly paradoxical nature. Seen from a distance, the effect is almost photo-realistic—yet within a certain proximity, it quickly reduces to amorphous smokiness and stark, abstract figures of an almost typographical disposition.
