Matthew Draws VII - The Answers

Faithful readers, I have made you wait a long time for the answers to the seventh installment of Matthew Draws. I could come up with so many excuses. A busy schedule, jet-lag in the wake of my return from Japan, the demands of raising two small children. But the truth is that I have been stalling in hope that one of you might complete the perfect set of responses, thus gratifying my desire to be fully understood as a budding artist. Alas, this dream has not come to fruition, and so I must now reveal to you the vast gulf between my drawing skills and your guessing powers.

The first challenge was to identify this person:

Alas, there was no consensus from the guessers. Speculation was rampant: Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Kidman, Alanis (I can see it, actually), Jennifer Garner, My Aunt Donna, Meredith Viera, Carol Burnett, Gloria Steinem, Pocahontas at 40, Greta van Susteren, Emily Blunt, Picasso’s Mother, Hillary Clinton needs a haircut,
disgruntled Gilbert and Sullivan singing cousin, Bill Clinton after a sex change, Mrs. Horseyface, my birth mother, “a sweet potato carved and shrunken…less some wrinkles,” and “obviously someone who teaches at Hogwarts.”

One of you was honest (or defeated) enough to answer “?”

One of you was clever (or desperate) enough to load this drawing into a facial recognition program in search of the identity. The program proclaimed that my subject was Ashlee Simpson. I’m sorry to say that the program was wrong, reminding us all that technology has met its match in Matthew Draws.

But I am deeply gratified to say that two of you—that’s right TWO of you had the astuteness and vision to guess Ann Coulter. Bravo!

The thing I’m starting to learn about drawing women is that you just can’t include the lines in their faces without making them look like wizened hags. On the other hand, adding the lines to men’s faces makes them instantly recognizable. I’m sure there’s a deep and probing social comment in this observation, but I respectfully choose to pursue it no further.

On then, to my second subject.

A good number of you thought that this was a drawing of an African American, as evidenced in the following answers: Al Roker, James Earl Jones, and Harry et Tubman (not sure whether to attribute this to extremely bad spelling or an odder brand of humor than my own), Michael Steele, “Desmond Tutu—just about to say something profound”, and “some smart black guy”.

Others of you interpreted this as a drawing of a Caucasian. Guesses along these lines included: Wallace Shawn (five votes for Wallace), George Constanza, Jason Alexander, Larry David (Seinfeld theme emerging), Billy Crystal, and “an older gentleman, very wise, very humble)”.

Though I very much appreciate all of you for trying so hard to come up with all of these wonderful wrong answers, I am exceedingly pleased to report that five of you correctly guessed that I was trying to draw Danny DeVito.

Next up was this little number.

I’ll say at the outset that a powerful clue was given to those of you who were paying attention during Matthew Draws VI. Apparently, many of you were paying attention, because many of you got the right answer.

Those of you who did not, guessed:

Lindsay Lohan, Keri Russell, Kiera Knightly, Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Rumer Willis, Shakira, young Brooke Shields (it’s the eyebrows), Taylor Swift, Megan Fox, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Natalie Portman, Kate Winslett, “buxom babysitter,” and “trick question: this woman is not real.”

Oh, she’s real all right, just not any of the above.

Some of you were so riled by this drawing that you wrote short essays (but were still wrong):

The evil babysitter who sleeps with the dad, who, incidentally, on this day could not decide whether she wanted her hair straight or crimped, so she went with both

That actress from the 80s who was in the Brat Pack and had dandruff in The Breakfast Club, but the cleaned up version of herself after Molly Ringwald gives her a hygiene lesson.

A full TEN of you got this one right, correctly identifying Isla Fisher (including Peter, in whose honor I drew Isla to begin with).

As I looked through the responses, I was encouraged to see that you guessers seemed to be picking up steam as we go along. Or was it that my drawing skills were improving with every new subject? I did not dare to speculate. At this rate, I thought to myself, surely every last one of you would correctly identify my fourth drawing.

Alas, my expectations were hopelessly dashed.

Robert Pattison (of Twilight fame) was the most frequently cited wrong answer. I particularly enjoyed this variation on the theme: “Robert Pattison when he hasn’t had a drink of blood in over a week.”

Further missteps included Ewan Mc Gregor, Leo Decaprio, Bradley Cooper, Jake Hyllenhaal, Colin Farrel, George Clooney, Vincent Gallo, Rod Stewart, Matthew Lillard (from Scream), Mickey Rorkue, Jesse James, Sean Penn, and Taylor Lautner.

Some of you insisted on drawing attention to the inadvertently disheveled appearance of my subject. You rude people suggested that I had drawn:

Conan after a rough night
A wino with a chin tumor
The meth addict on the corner (hence the scabs on his face from picking the bugs
Chinbert Downey Jr.
Some aged, skeezy actor type
Johnny Depp meets Jay Leno…both on a hangover day
Javier Bardem or Jay Leno both needing a shave and a haircut
Sketchy five o’clock shadow sleazeball
He kind of looks like the chihuahua from Taco Bell

As it turns out, only one of you guessed correctly, and that person is the one who suggested that I draw this fellow in the first place. Still, Kudos to Don for seeing through the horror of my rendering.

I give you Ethan Hawke.

I never realized until I tried to draw him what a handsome fellow Ethan is. Perhaps I was too distracted by his manbeauty to successfully capture the natural curve of his chin?

As for the bonus question (which of these people you would choose as a parent), there were many entertaining offerings. I leave you with a few of my favorite.

I would have said the second one, since he and I seem to share the same hair pattern. But since balding is not inherited from the father’s side, I’m going to go with person 1 since she appears to be tall.

Carol Burnett (have you seen Annie?)

Isla Fisher: she is pretty and then Sasha Baron Cohen would be my dad!

Long Haired Hilary, so we could braid each other’s hair.

Robert Pattison: He clearly has decent genes (see lovely eyelashes) but just had the misfortune of breaking his jaw one too many times.

Larry David, because nobody would blame me if I killed him for the insurance money.

Jay Lenno in drag could be my mom AND my dad.

Robert Pattison, because he would obviously teach his kids how to compensate for horrible special effects while running in the forest.

And there you have it folks. Another installment of Matthew Draws is sheepishly in the books. Thanks to all of you who participated—either in the guessing or in the subsequent depantsing of my drawing skills. I don’t know why I keep doing this. Or perhaps I do. Somewhere out there is a set of four people I will be able to draw so well that all of you will guess their identities correctly. At which point, Matthew Draws will be come dull, and we can launch my next project, Matthew Juggles Flaming Batons.

Stay tuned.