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Course Description
This course is designed to provide intensive training in the preparation of artist composite drawings and fugitive age progressions. This class is taught by experienced FBI artists actively working in the field of forensic art, with additional lectures and demonstrations by noted law enforcement and academic professionals.

Students will learn the principles of drawing: gesture, accuracy, proportion, form, line, shadow, and edge control. These skills will enable the student to create professional quality, lifelike drawings with the illusion of three-dimensionality.

Unique aspects of this course include: one-on-one drawing instruction; hands-on training in muscular and skeletal anatomy; fundamentals of the memory process; facial coding and classification; cognitive witness interview techniques; the facial aging process; proper use of reference materials; accurate record-keeping; courtroom demeanor and testimony.

This course is designed for non-FBI law enforcement personnel with basic to intermediate knowledge and skills in composite drawing. Students are selected on the basis that they are assigned by their department to prepare composite drawings and facial age progressions.

• Improve the quality, accuracy, and speed of their drawing;

• Acquire a solid knowledge of muscular and skeletal anatomy, and facial proportion;

• Understand how to visually classify features of the human face;

• Learn skills in cognitive interviewing techniques, and participate in mock-interview sessions

• Develop interview skills and techniques in order to elicit descriptive data from a witness in various stages of trauma;



• Enhance their ability to interpret descriptive and body language from a witness;


• Learn how to organize and maintain clear and concise case records related to forensic art;


• Learn the effects brought on by the aging process for the purpose of producing fugitive age progressed images;


• Learn the fundamentals of the judicial process as it relates to forensic art;


• Testify in a moot court setting regarding a composite drawing gained through a witness interview.

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