The SketchCop® Blog

Hello Everyone,

What a crazy month this has been, both here and abroad! I’ve been doing the best I can not to play into the fear and the hype, but to err on the side of caution – I’m playing it safe and staying close to home.

However, it’s sometimes necessary to leave the safety and security of your home and get out to mix and mingle. It’s impossible to stay at home all of the time. Right now, venturing out in public requires that you follow precautions like washing your hands, using anti-bacterial wipes, or spray. Maintaining your distance to avoid people who are contagious is especially important. These are precautions we should practice anyway, with or without the Coronavirus.

Personally, I’ve always viewed obstacles as opportunities. It’s my opinion that we emerge from a crisis stronger than before. Surviving a crisis often leads us to form a different point of view, rethink our values or to look deep within ourselves and make individual self-improvements that lead us to become more educated, skilled or better informed.

During these next few weeks, I’ll be examining my own circumstance and use the time to renew my dedication to personal health through lessening my food intake, eat healthier and find better ways to exercise outside the gym.

I’ll also make time to practice my artistic skills and catch up on organizational or work products. Or, watch some webinars, read technical material and listen to some of my favorite podcasts. Maybe I’ll even meditate and nurse my bonsai tree back to health.

Some days I’m sure to be less ambitious. I might just say f-it and I’ll sit on the couch, devour a bag of Doritos and randomly sketch stuff while binge-watching Netflix.

Whatever I, or we choose to do, it’s my belief that we’ll gain the most valuable education about ourselves. For example, what lengths we are willing to go to so that we can adapt and survive in this ever-changing world of ours.

And, when this crisis is over and the cloud of uncertainty has lifted and we resume our regularly scheduled social programming, it’s important that don’t forget the lessons we learned.

But in this moment, I ask that you LIVE …cautiously and take care of yourself and your families. I’ll be doing the same. Maybe we could all spend our down time sketching. After all, there’s no better way to express yourself than observing and sketching the things around you. Or, just draw those objects floating around in your head. I can’t think of a better way to relax and relieve stress. Can you?

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you. Next month, we’ll tackle a lighter topic. In the meantime, be well, stay safe and as always…

Keep on sketching!

February’s half-done and there’s still love in the air! And let me tell you…there’s nothing I LOVE more than catching crooks!

In this month’s newsletter, I thought I would share my method for creating effective facial composites.

As a reminder, we are in the last 2 days of a giveaway, – one lucky winner will receive a FREE 30-minute sketch lesson, courtesy of SketchCop® Solutions and Debbie Mack’s Crime Café.

To top things off, I’m also going to provide you with 30% discount off my book – Creating Digital Faces for Law Enforcement. (Keep reading to find the discount code.)

Who says I don’t love you all?

Now, let’s get to it…

In the early days, most law enforcement agencies used Smith & Wesson’s IdentiKit to create facial composites.

The Identikit was a small wooden box containing hundreds of facial features printed on small sheets of acetate. Officers would assemble them at the direction of the eyewitness to create a facial composite. In my opinion, it was a crude tool, but an effective one.

Once computers introduced us to facial composite software; I made the decision to get involved, hoping to influence the technology.

Most of my work with software companies involved customer training. Back then, my training was structured in separate blocks, leaving the student to figure out how to apply the training once it was concluded.

Today, we’ve developed a better way to combine the training blocks in a way that’s more cohesive.

Our current training – Creating Digital Faces for Law Enforcement uses The SketchCop® Solution – A 5-Step Method for Creating Effective Facial Composites.

Whether you’re sketching by hand or using a software-driven solution similar to our SketchCop® Facial Composite System software program, the method remains the same. To help you better understand our system; I’ve described the steps below for you to follow:

• Gather
• Build
• Edit
• Refine
• Finish

• Review – police reports or other related material
• Interview – Build rapport, utilize cognitive interview technique

• Guide your eyewitness through the on-screen facial component libraries the SketchCop® Facial Component System software program

• Use built-in modification tools to establish correct facial proportion by adjusting the length, width and proper location of select facial components

• Use SketchCop®’s edit & paint tools to complete the facial composite, or export the composite image to an outside program, like Adobe® or Corel® products

• Provide the eyewitness with a final opportunity to review the image and make final refinements
• Save image
• Print a copy of the facial composite, date and sign it along with the eyewitness
• Close out the interview, reassure them and thank them for remaining engaged in the investigation
• Deliver the facial composite to the requesting investigator and debrief him/her. Do not allow the eyewitness to leave until OK’d by the detective

If you follow the above steps, you should have no problem creating an effective facial composite.

To learn more, click on the link below to order your discounted copy of my book – Creating Digital Faces for Law Enforcement (Elsevier/Academic Press)

https://www.elsevier.com/books/creating-digital-faces-for-law-enforcement/streed/978-0-12-805102-3

Use the code FOREN320 at checkout to receive your discount.

Also, enter the giveaway for a FREE 30-minute sketch lesson. Click on the link below to learn how.

http://www.debbimack.com/blog/guest-posts/a-guest-post-and-giveaway-by-michael-streed/

Thanks again for tuning in! I hope you enjoy your offers. Stay with us for more exciting news coming next month.

Until then, keep sketching!

Welcome to the New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed a quiet and peaceful holiday.

Now that we’re back, it’s time to get back into the work rhythm. This month I thought I would ease you into 2020 by doing something fun. I want to share an article written about a historical project I worked on for the Maryland Historical Society. Sometimes I get to take a break from crime to work on some fascinating projects. Please enjoy the below article and let me know if you have any questions.

Aging Gracefully

By Alexandra Deutsch, Chief Curator, Maryland Historical Society

In 1858, when Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was seventy three years old, she lamented “My Beauty is departed,” a sentiment she had uttered for decades.

Her beauty had been celebrated throughout her life. In her youth, she was thought the most beautiful woman in America. Her appearance was the thing of legends and, in 1803, drew Jérôme Bonaparte to Baltimore to meet the “exquisite creature” described to him.

For a woman whose beauty was central to her identity, aging must have been difficult. Rather than embracing the changes time wrought, Elizabeth defied them. Her account books documents a recipe for hair dye, as well as various compounds to create creams and possibly cosmetics. If she must age, she was going to do it as gracefully as possible.

As early as 1815 when Elizabeth was 30, a letter from her friend Elizabeth Godefroy suggests that Elizabeth saw her looks declining. Godefroy assures her, “I do not believe you about your looks.”

Perhaps she attributed her visible aging to the strain and stress of Napoléon’s annulment, her return to her father’s unwelcoming home in Baltimore and her (successful) suit for divorce from Jérôme.

Life had been, as Elizabeth once said, “a mean and grinding martyrdom.” Such emotional misery is not easy on the looks.

Despite her perception of her appearance, Elizabeth’s beauty is documented in several surviving portraits. In 1838 when Elizabeth was 53, she had her silhouette cut in Rockaway Beach, New York. The solid black image depicts her in profile with a softening jawline and an appropriately middle ­aged appearance. The silhouette is the last known image of her that survives. To date, no photographs of her are known. Instead, Elizabeth commissioned copies of her portraits to give as gifts. How did this woman look at 40, 60, 90?

To answer this question, we turned to internationally­ known forensic artist, Michael W. Streed, the owner of SketchCop Solutions. Using existing images of Elizabeth, Streed age­progressed her, a delicate trick of artistry and intuition that produced fascinating results. The images Streed created are now on view in “Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and Her Quest for an Imperial Legacy.”

I asked Streed a few questions about the process of “aging Elizabeth” and the challenges it presented. These were his responses to my questions. How did you approach the project? I read about Miss Bonaparte and her privileged, yet tragic life. I tried to imagine what it was like to carry her burden throughout the years. This led me to depict her as a proud, yet determined

woman. An elegant woman not jaded, nor affected by environmental elements throughout her many travels overseas. What was the greatest challenge?

My greatest challenge was accurately capturing Elizabeth Bonaparte’s photographic likeness from a painting. Miss Bonaparte had a unique facial structure that was difficult to duplicate. I believe in the end I was successful capturing her facial nuances. It took hours of reading and research to find the correct fashions and hairstyles for the various time periods throughout her life. Equally challenging was finding the right combination of photos to maintain the integrity of her identity as she gracefully and elegantly aged. Did the results surprise you?

The results always surprise me during historical projects, mainly because the subjects themselves are so fascinating. Each of them has a look that makes them unique. A person’s face says much about their personality. Capturing it and maintaining it through a period of many years is the key to success. Is there anything else you want me to add about the project?

Working on historical figures is always a pleasing distraction from my daily work depicting criminals. Although I have a passion for helping crime victims, I equally enjoy working with those tasked with preserving the rich history here in Baltimore. The opportunity to partner with highly intelligent, passionate and curious people enriches my life and makes me excited for what each new day might bring.

And that’s it for this month. I have a pretty significant historical/museum project I completed last year. Want a hint? It’s Presidential. Once the exhibit goes live, I will share the news in an upcoming newsletter.

In the meantime, enjoy the cool weather. Work on those goals and resolutions. Keep on sketching of course. And we’ll catch up with you next month.

Hello everyone and welcome to December! In two short weeks we’ll be starting a new year. Actually, we’re kicking off a new DECADE and I couldn’t be more excited!

January 2020 marks my 40^th year as a forensic artist. I remember how thrilled I was to take my entry test and be accepted into my first forensic art course. The course was taught by LAPD’s famed police sketch artist Fernando Ponce. He became a friend and mentor. Fast forward 40 years and I’m now working as one of LAPD’s Police Composite Artists. Ponce always told me to work hard. I have never forgotten his words of wisdom and over the years it’s proven to be the best advice anyone gave me for success.

Over the last two years I’ve been sharing my thoughts with you about forensic facial imaging. Although we’ve introduced a few courses on our SketchCop® Online Academy, it’s not even close to where I want it to be. I could give you a million excuses why, but talk is cheap. It’s time I finally deliver on those promises and 2020 will be the year for that to happen.

I can tell you that I’m currently in the process of working on an extensive course in forensic art and how to draw facial composites, both in the traditional pencil and paper method as well as digitally, using a software-driven approach.

At the same time, we will be deciding how to deliver it. All at once, or one course per month as a ‘part-time’ program.

Luckily, I have an experienced forensic science professor helping me with the academic part and course design, so I’m sure we will come up with something special to get this off the ground once and for all. (Big shout-out to Terri Armenta from Forensic Science Unlimited at: https://forensictrainingunlimited.teachable.com/, she’s amazing!)

It would be great to hear from all of you to let me know what kind of training you would like to see. Please drop me a note at: Michael@SketchCop.com and let me know, OK?

In the meantime, I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season. I’m hoping that 2020 is going to be a big year for all of us, filled with happiness and success. Just lay off the eggnog, embrace your ugly Christmas sweater, let go for the holidays and enjoy everyone and everything going on around you. Just make sure you take some time out to sketch. Even if you can’t draw a straight line. ?

Thanks again for being a part of SketchCop® Online Academy. Again, Happy Holidays and I’ll catch you on the flip side of the calendar!