Hold the phones. Stop everything. Douglas McDougall has just owned the entire internet with his next-level hyperrealistic drawings.
The Scottish artist, who we spotted on My Modern Met, begins his drawings using standard charcoal as his medium, then adds further detail with the help of scalpel blades, sharp erasers and sandpaper. His resulting works capture the aging human face as a landscape of experiences, each wrinkle and rough patch telling its own story.
McDougall explained the importance of his artistic method in an email to the Huffington Post:
"I feel it's honouring the tradition of drawing, bringing those early cave paintings or hieroglyphics into a modern synthesis... It packs an old world feel to it that allows me to plug in and play with the terms of its historical theatrical elements, or ghosts of the past. It also provides a stunning foundation and plenty of room for the contemporary immediacy of it all. When I'm in the zone it's like having a black key to my own time machine. I reckon this must make me a charcoal obsessive compulsive adventurer."
In McDougall's hyper-intense world, wrinkles become entwined with streaks of shadow, stray hairs and fading scars, turning the human face into a surreal canvas. We're struggling to think of the last time we encountered a drawing with this level of detail. Can you? Let us know if you're ready to praise Douglas McDougall's artistic talents (and awesome name) in the comments.
