Back to Faces

There was a time, a couple of years ago, when most of the art I did involved faces. Lots of sketchbooks and journal pages were filled with faces. And then I almost stopped doing them. I hit a plateau and didn't feel like I was progressing at all. Now I find myself drawing and painting faces again, not with the same absorption that I had before, but I am enjoying creating them again.

One of the things that helped was Jane Davenport's new book, Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces. It is crammed full of techniques using many different mediums. I have a couple of paintings in progress with the goal of learning a new technique.

Recently, Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine published a special addition called FACES: Creating Mixed-media Portraits. One of Dina Wakley's faces is on the cover. If you are interested in creating faces, you are sure to find something in this magazine. There are articles on drawing, painting, collage, abstract, and assemblage techniques. If you are project-oriented, there is a section in the back with directions on a variety of portrait projects, including stitching, doodling, transfers, resist, and more. Some of the artists who contributed to the magazine are Dina Wakley, Pam Carriker, Jane Davenport, and Michael Massen.

An article that immediately caught my attention is Simple Expressions by Karen O'Brien. It describes how to create faces that express emotions, one of the things my faces have been lacking. Her directions helped me create the faces below. I am really out of practice.

Karen draws the type of faces that have the eyes at the outside edge of the face. She, of course, drew her examples in her style. I started to draw a face in her style, which is how I ended up with such a round head. I just couldn't do it. I have to admit that I find those faces creepy. Based on how many people draw like that, it is obvious that others don't have the same reaction. Don't know where the extra skinny neck came from, but I just left it.

The next drawing had a bit of an accident. I was nearly finished and had grabbed a piece of deli paper to cover part of the face so I wouldn't smear the graphite. I put the paper aside. When I grabbed it again, I smeared burnt sienna on my drawing. I had put the paper on top of my palette paper which had open acrylic on it. (Note to Self: When using open acrylic, remember to move the palette paper out of your working area when you are not using it.) I wiped it off as best I could. I decided to show it to you anyway since I thought I did fairly well on this one. We won't mention that she looks like she has the mumps on her right side. ***

I'll be trying some other emotions from Karen's article.

*** Just a little tip: Scanning your art is one of the best ways to see how it really looks. I can look at something repeatedly, even putting it on an easel and looking at it vertically. But when I scan it and it appears on the computer screen, things just pop out at me that I never saw before, some good, some that need fixing. When I am working on a drawing that will become a serious project, I scan several times as I develop the drawing.

Karen O'Brien has another article in the magazine, Face Play: Drawing Faces from Your Imagination. I'm looking forward to trying some of her ideas in that article, too. Karen has a book, Imaginary Creatures, coming out soon.

I also want to try creating a face as part of an abstract painting with the help of Debora L. Stewart's article, Creating an Abstract Portrait. It seems I am hooked on faces again.