Faces on Friday redux

I don't think I'll ever be quite done learning to draw faces.

I can see that I've come a long way from a year ago.

I don't draw a face every day on an index card any more but I do keep them in my sketchbook. Once a week or so I'll be sitting in a crowd and pull them out and draw several all at once. Every once in a while now I can look at the sketch and recognize the person I was trying to draw. That's progress.

 I also keep working in my sketchbook.

 Some are very quick and rough.

 It's still difficult for me to get the proportions on the upper and lower face to work together.

One step at a time.

So the adventure continues. 

Here is one of the original "Faces on Friday" posts.

Every once in a while it's fun to pull out the stack of cards and compare.

Faces on Friday (late again)

I think I need to take time and work on a few faces this week instead of scribbling them down super fast.

I'm feeling like I'm going backwards, looking worse.

Ya know, I think I get this feeling halfway through any project or artwork. There always comes a point where I hate the thing I've done. Sometimes I can move forward to a good place. Sometimes I need to back up and rework something. Sometimes it needs to be put away and given a rest for a while. Sometimes it's just ME who needs to be put away and rest for a while.

 

Given a little time and space things look better. These two actually DO look like the people I drew (and apologies for the skewed page.)

Anything worth doing is worth struggling for.  

How do you keep going when you hit that rough spot?

Tutorial: Creating Depth and Space pt1

I love to look down a path. I wonder about the mystery of what lies just beyond my view. Creating that illusion of depth, the feeling of walking into another world through a sketch or painting or any two dimensional artwork is not as hard as it might appear.

Photo by Julia Wade

Think for a moment about the three dimensional world we live in. Every day we look out a window into the distance or move through the space of our home. As we try to interpret what we see and experience in a piece of art, there are many techniques that help us to create the illusion of depth in space on a flat surface.

Pathways by Lyric Kinard

Take a look at this tiny quilt.  Even though each piece of fabric representing a tree becomes smaller, our mind interprets it as a line of similarly sized trees receding into the distant landscape. The tree shapes also overlap one another and as the path recedes the trees are placed farther up within the frame of the work.  

The simplest devices to show depth are SIZE, OVERLAP and VERTICAL PLACEMENT. The closer an object is to us the larger it appears so it stands to reason that if you have similar elements and you increase their size, the larger ones will appear to come forward. 

See? Not so hard. Check back here next week for a little tutorial on perspective and vanishing points.

Faces on Friday (except it's not Friday is it)

Daughter of a friend - with the most soulful eyes

Two weeks ago (I'm slipping)

Sketchbook Faces - from life

Sketchbook faces - from imagination

 Sketchbook faces - from life

Just for fun - mostly from a childrens book by Bruce Whatley

Faces on Friday

The first three are all drawings of my beloved Mr. Almost Perfect. The second looks closes to him - I worked and reworked his nose and think I finally got close to getting it right. Most of the rest are very quickly done - 30 seconds or so.

And just for fun I thought I'd show you this fun thing. I got tired of the back-pack spillage that covers my kitchen floor. We had cubby-holes built in and I spent the past couple days painting them.

Faces on Friday

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Not the people of course - just my skilz.

I found out that if you have lotion on your hands and you keep erasing and swiping the paper with your finger it just smudges. Oops.

Faces on Friday

I see progress. I'm starting to be able to see where my mistakes are.

Faces on Friday: Figure Study

Sincerest apologies to my friends, who hopefully can't recognize themselves because the drawings don't look anything like them anyway. No - you really don't look like that. I promise.  

If you ever get the chance to go to a figure study session - DO IT! The people there don't care how good or bad you are. It is a fantastic way to get better. I'm finding quite some improvement in just a few sessions.

It begins with 30 second poses. They go by so fast I feel like I barely have time to get marks on the paper. Fantastic warm ups!

Next are the one minute poses. I've improved enough that I can get the form. I just can't get the whole thing on one piece of paper yet. I'm going to go get a really, really BIG sketch pad before the next time.

Five and ten minute poses give enough time to work harder on getting lines and proportions right.

After a break the 20 minute poses seem like a treasure. Unless things start going wrong - then it's an eternity. When that happened I simply chose a really hard feature like hands and feet and switched to working on just that.

This is my favorite. Roughed in with a pencil then lines laid in with a japanese brush pen. It occurred to me the other day that I could fill a waterbrush with india ink at half the price of the refill cartridges.

So which is your favorite? And - have you been drawing faces too? Put your links in the comments and I'd LOVE to come take a look!

Any Time! Anywhere!

You truly don't need to be fancy about keeping a sketchbook.

Get a small one that is portable and keep it with you all the time.

It can be a place to freely doodle and play. 

You'll be amazed at how your drawing skills improve

simply by taking a minute here, a minute there.

 At the airport.

 Staying awake at church.

 Waiting for food at a restaurant.

 Insomnia late at night (drawn from a photo).

Just DO it!

Faces on Friday

 At a meeting.

 At the airport.

From an ad for Lion King while on the plane.

At a quilt guild. Sorry ladies - these don't look anything like you and next year I definitely need to work on hands.

On the plane again.

Last week Sandy asked how to draw noses and how to draw expression. I told her that if I knew I'd let her know. My sister did send this link last week from Lackadaisy's website. I love, love love, this graphic artist. It's a great little tutorial on how to draw expressions.

As for noses? I've been trying is to pay close attention to the shape of the tip and rough that in first. Getting it in the right place is another story. I see progress - and much work left to do. But the important part? I'm having fun doing it!

Faces on Friday

Welcome to Week 4 of my year long determination to learn how to draw faces.

 At a daughter's concert. Fast sketches then longer ones... using pencil and eraser

I think perhaps next year I'm going to need to work on hands. ug.

 Same concert - this looks like her!!! Friends of the kid I drew on the other side happened to be sitting next to me and kept looking over my shoulder. I ripped it out and gave it to them for him. They handed it back and asked me to sign it. (big grins)

 Sketches at church, my own "Calvin" from a photo. (Calvin and Hobbes)

This little guy is full of happy mischief and loves to make faces!

 Concentrating on the mirror. Kids said I looked mad so I tried a smiling face - goofy.

I like my spiky haircut.

Watching TV. From my imagination.

I've always secretly wanted pointy ears.

How is your journey coming along?