Ask a Forensic Artist – Information About Forensic Art, Composite Drawing, Facial Reconstruction

Welcome to AAFA, the site that aims to give you solid, current information on the field of Forensic Art, and the people behind the scenes that do the work.

Do you want to be a Forensic Artist? The information is here within this site to help you reach that goal. I won’t sugar-coat it; it’s not an easy field to break into. But it can be done. Hundreds of artists are out there doing the work right now. You can too, if you have the skill and persistence. But first, you need to know where to start.

Are you already a forensic artist? Then share your knowledge and insight with others: provide a case-study, tell everyone about a great class you took, or a helpful tip you discovered. Let everyone know how valuable this field is, how you’ve worked together with law enforcement to identify suspects, given names back to the unidentified, and ultimately helped the victims of crime.

Are you a CSI fan? Are you fascinated by anything to do with forensics, wonder how a face can be  reconstructed onto a skull, how artists can digitally age someone from 15 years old to 50? You’ll learn it all here, and know the difference between what you see on TV (holograms of crime scenes, and gun-toting anthropologists!) and the reality.
From the artists themselves.

This site is chock full of information, and is constantly growing and being updated. There is are interviews with real forensic artists, tutorials, news updates, career information, training opportunities, and case studies. Also, there will be my blog postings about things happening in forensic art, or anything related to the field that happens to be of interest to me at the moment.

And if you have any questions along the way, something you want to know about that you haven’t seen here, just ask.

ForensicArtist Blog

Here is something interesting to consider participating in, as we all head off for a three-day weekend: a museum art exhibition featuring the work of police sketch artists. We are always looking for ways to promote the visibility, accessibility, and use of forensic art. Projects like these are just one more way to remind the public that we are here. I have posted the “Call for Artist” below. Have a great weekend!

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Exhibition

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University is looking for a police sketch artist in St. Louis or one willing to travel to St. Louis to work on a series of composite sketches needed as part of an exhibition we’ll be hosting here at this fall and winter (October 8 – January 10).  The schedule and pay are negotiable.

The composite artist would work with individual museum visitors on an installation called First Love, in which visitors to the exhibition participate in the artwork by working with the sketch artist to create by hand a sketch of their memory of their first love. These “conversations-made-into-drawings” will be displayed in the museum for the duration of the exhibition, and would be hung on the wall next to the table and chairs in the gallery where the sketches take place.

The use of a professional sketch artist – as someone usually hired to draw and identify criminals or missing persons – is essential to infuse the work with associations both sentimental and tragic.

The Kemper Art Museum is the second venue for this exhibition, Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, and First Love was incredibly popular at the first venue in New York City.  

 Here is a local news piece on First Love:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=7563095

 You can find a general description of the exhibition at our website:

http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/exhibitions/neuenschwander

 Below is a NYTimes review of the exhibition in New York:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/arts/design/25rivane.html?_r=1

For more information or to apply, please contact Rachel_Keith@wustl.edu.

ForensicArtist Blog

This article just gave me chills:  “As part of an ongoing project at Holocaust Museum Houston, forensic artist Lois Gibson is interviewing local survivors, then sketching images of loved ones slaughtered by the Nazis…Gibson knows she can’t right the wrongs of the Holocaust, but, she says, “I bust my gut to try to help them. I try to give them a perfect image of their loved one, like a photograph.”

I just think this is a wonderful, selfless thing that Lois is doing. Please check out the full article in the Chronicle.

ForensicArtist Blog, In the News

Things that make me laugh…

ForensicArtist Blog