Still Drawing Faces

I'm still drawing faces - but most often in my sketchbook rather than on 3x5 index cards.

 some come from imagination and some from the people around me

 above and below are from imagination

these three are people I know

 and miracle of miracles...

I can look at them and recognize who they are

Faces on Friday and Creative Students!

I spent time this week with the Peninsula Piecemakers Quilt Guild. These pictures were taken during our class "The Elements of Art." After a long day of play and design each student searched out an object and brought it back to the table. Each was then given a basic design element (texture, shape, line, color value) to concentrate on while they quickly interpreted their tableau. I love seeing the creativity and playfulness that expressed itself in each piece.

 tulips, basket, fly swatter

 branches, dandelions, sweet gum balls

tulips, cookie 

pot, glue, bowl of water 

floating leaf, plant

 tongs, water bottle, magnolia pods

These exercises were seriously "out of the box" for these lovely quilters and I am so impressed with how they willingly opened up and gave it their best. Their work was playful, lovely, creative, and wonderful.

This is why I love teaching!

And because I promised myself I would.... here are the week's faces.

Almost all of these are very quickly done.

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!

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!

Tutorial: How to Draw a Face

Drawing the human figure is difficult. 

But it CAN be done.

A good beginning is to learn about proportions.

I was surprised to learn that drawing a face can be like learning math.

It takes work but it CAN be done.

(shall I repeat myself again?)

I said, it CAN be done!