29 Faces Challenge - Face #14

Today's face was colored with Prismacolor pencils. Graphite is quicker, but I need practice with the colored pencils. I haven't used them much in the last year, except to add shadows and details to journal pages created with mostly acrylic paint.

The downside is the extra time it will take to finish a face. But, with all the other things I need to do this week, there is no way I'll finish all 29 faces anyway. Practicing with the Prismacolors is a better use of my time. So here she is.

This face was actually sketched a couple of days before the challenge started, with the idea of using her for a journal page. You will notice the angry look...at least, I hope you do. That was my intention. The journal page is for venting about something that is making me very angry. The challenge started and the journal page was set aside.

In the meantime, I've come up with a better idea for my journal page. I decided to use this lady as part of my 29 Faces. I transferred her from my sketchbook to a piece of Stonehenge paper using the homemade carbon paper method I described in this post.

Over a period of several years, I tried all kinds of paper with the Prismacolors. They either had too much tooth or not enough, or were too thin. It was a supply list that I found on a DVD by Lee Hammond that solved my problem. She recommended using the Stonehenge paper for colored pencils.

I tried scanning, but my image was washed out. I took a photograph with artificial light. I get better results if I take photos outside in natural light, but we've had a very dark, rainy day. I did work on the image in Photoshop to make it look as close to the original image as possible. It's not perfect, but it is the best I am going to get today.

I have to get back to the things I should have been doing. Since there is nothing in progress on my art table, I might actually get something else done.

29 Faces Challenge - Faces #12 and #13

I have been looking at painted or drawn faces with realistic noses.  Besides being the ugliest part of the human face (IMO), I find it the hardest part to draw or paint. It mostly depends on the artist's skill with applying shadows and highlights.

On my latest attempt at a three-quarter female face, I made an effort to make a realistic nose. I still need a lot of practice, but I definitely think it is an improvement over Face #11.

Another male, this time with a less aggressive chin:

Enjoy your weekend.

29 Faces Challenge - Face #11

Gave the three-quarter view a try. The usual places, the nose and mouth, gave me trouble. I'm hoping more practice will help. Suggestions are welcome.

29 Faces Challenge - Faces #9 and #10

Here are a couple more faces. They are a little happier than the last ones.

It's really hard to find a photo of a front-facing male face. Every male in my catalog pile was photographed in the three-quarter view. Most of the females are, too, but you can usually find a front-facing female in the women's magazines. I did find some on the web, but the quality was not good. Guess that means I need to move on to the three-quarter view.

Both of these drawings were done mostly freehanded with estimation of placement rather than actual measurement. The only exception was the placement of the eyes when I first began. Once they are in place, I can estimate where other facial features should be placed. It's making my faces looser and more varied. The practice is definitely helping.

'Til next time.

29 Faces Challenge - Face #7 and 8

I'm five faces behind. I'm hoping to get in a few extra faces this week to catch up, but in reality, I may end up even farther behind.

Below are a couple of sketches I did today. The first one is a bit weird. I don't think human eyes can end up in quite that shape, but I had fun drawing them. I'm thinking about making the smudging around the eyes even darker.

I did not feel like drawing hair, thus the hat. I decided it made a change. I might have to do more hats. I tried darker smudging around the eyes. I'm thinking about trying charcoal to get the effect I want, but not in this sketchbook.

Both faces are in the sketchbook that I have decided is only good for pen and ink. Pencil works okay as long as I don't use a blending stump, but that is what I needed to get the effect I wanted to practice. The blending is not smooth like I get on Bristol paper.

The sketchbook was a gift which I will continue to use. There are some things I like about it. The size, 7" X 10", is perfect for a practice sketch. The wirebound cover is very sturdy and gives good support if you are working while sitting in a recliner. All the information about this journal was on the wrapper I threw away a couple of years ago. I don't even remember the brand. I found the same size with a sturdy, wirebound cover at Blick, which is temporarily out of stock. The description says it works with lots of different mediums. I am hoping to get the good features of this one with some better paper.

We have some nice weather in the forecast. It is supposed to be chilly tonight, good sleeping weather. I'm planning to sleep in tomorrow morning since it will still be cool enough tomorrow afternoon to work in the yard, seventies and low humidity. Ah-h-h, fall.

29 Faces Challenge - Face #6

In my last post, I mentioned that I knew I had made lots of mistakes in Face #4, the male. I took Klair Scattergood's (aka Rhomany of Rhomany's Realm) Portrait classes in 2012 when she first introduced them. I have mostly drawn females since those classes. I had forgotten a lot about the differences in the male and female faces.

On Saturday afternoon, I reviewed the first set of class videos on the basic male features and the front-facing portrait. Wow, I really was off on a lot of things. After reviewing it once, I went through it again and drew a basic male along with her explanation. This is my result.

You may notice some light pencil stokes that make two stacked squares. These are the structure that Rhomany uses to build her faces. She developed this for herself because she said her ovals always came out wonky. You will have to take her classes for an explanation. I will say that her classes helped me because I draw wonky ovals, too, but that was just a small part of what I learned.

This guy is much too perfect, but as you get used to the system, you can begin to be more freehanded with it, thus losing the perfection.

I did use a photograph I had in my sketchbook to draw his eyes. Men have such interesting folds in their eyes. They can be really different. The ears are all over the place, too. You can also see some lightly sketched-in hair because I am going to take this guy beyond the initial sketch.

When I was taking Rho's first class on females, we were coloring the girls using Prismacolor pencils. If you have worked with them, you know that the Prismacolors will pick up any place you erased or otherwise altered the surface of the paper. Because of this, I got in the habit of doing a draft drawing in a sketchbook and then transferring the finished drawing to whatever type of paper I wanted to use, depending on the art medium I wanted to use. There are many ways to transfer, but I am going to show you my easy and cheap method.

I am planning to finish this guy with graphite pencils and a blending stump on Bristol paper. The paper has a smooth vellum surface that works well with graphite. Here are the steps I used to transfer him from the sketchbook to the Bristol paper.

• I decided the guy needed a shirt over all his muscles. I found a photo of a guy in a t-shirt online and used it to help draw a shirt on my sketch.
• I scanned the sketch. Then I took it into Photoshop and resized it. I am using a 7 in X 10 in piece of Bristol. I needed the sketch to be a bit smaller for it to fit nicely on the paper.
• Next I printed the resized sketch on a piece of plain paper.
• I used a trick I learned from my fourth grade teacher. I made my own carbon paper by coloring the backside of the paper with graphite. We used plain old No. 2 pencils in 4th grade, but I like to use a Prismacolor Ebony pencil. It has a soft, fat lead that leaves a lot of graphite on the paper. I'm down to a stub, so I ordered a new 2-pack a few days ago.
• After positioning the paper over the Bristol, I secured it with paperclips. Then I used a ballpoint pen to trace over the basic parts of the sketch. I don't press hard because I want to leave a minimum amount of graphite and I do not want to leave a groove in the paper. (Prismacolors and graphite do not work well over those.) Because the soft Ebony pencil leaves so much graphite, you don't need a lot of pressure.

 In this photo, you can see the red ballpoint line of my tracing. I use a colored pen to make it easier to see. If, for some reason, I want to make another tracing, I use a different color of pen.

You can see the graphite on the backside of the printed sketch. To make sure you have covered all the needed parts with the graphite, hold the paper up to let light shine through. You will easily see any spots you missed.

I traced a minimum of lines to give me the basic shapes. I only traced lines along the bottom of the eyebrows to give placement. A photo of some ears will help with the shading. Only the bottom of the nose was traced. Shading with the blending stump will make the upper portion.

It will be a couple of days before I post again. We're having a Labor Day cookout at a friend's house tomorrow. It will be a full day of activity and I know I will have no time for art. The guy will just have to wait.

29 Faces Challenge - Faces #4 and #5

Yesterday afternoon, while it was storming, I spent some time working with a pen in my sketchbook. I usually use a pencil, so this is always a bit scary. I drew about a dozen faces. These two are the best of the bunch.

The sketches were all freehand. The closest I came to measuring was to draw a small horizontal line crossed by a vertical line with pencil to help me space the eye ovals correctly. Then I erased the lines. Once I have the eyes in place, I can use them to estimate where the nose, mouth, and ears go.

Have you ever noticed that male faces seldom appear on the art blogs you visit? I wonder why that is. I admit that I tend to draw more females than males.

You will notice a lot of extra lines around his eyes. That is not some weird makeup. After studying my sketch, I realized he looked strange because his eyes were too small compared with the size of his nose. So I kept adding to the eyes until they were large enough.

As I look at him after scanning, I see some other mistakes I made. I think I need to rewatch the class videos before I draw more males.

I think I finally figured out what I've been doing wrong with my eyebrows in this expression.

I am really glad I joined the 29 Faces Challenge. All the practice I have done in the last few days is really helping to knock the rust off of my drawing skills.

29 Faces Challenge - Face #3

I finished my face last night, but was too tired to do the post. I went to get groceries this morning. This afternoon I had to unplug my computer due to storms that wouldn't go away. Just as the storms were finally over, I got a phone call. Then it was time for supper. After cleaning up the kitchen, I started working on my post...until the thunder started and I had to unplug again. Gr-r-r! It is still raining, but it is quiet. It's weird actually after hearing rumbles all afternoon.

I did do some sketching during the storms. I will scan and post a couple of the best tomorrow. No storms are in the forecast, but cooler weather is. Yeah!!

This is nothing like what I was imagining when I started. I am still working on showing emotions other than happy.  I'm not going to tell you what I intended. If you have the time, please tell me what you see.

I did not plan to make such a long face, but the drawing seemed to have a mind of its own. The finished face looks a bit masculine to me. The mop of hair didn't help at all.

Update: I played around with her eyebrows in Photoshop. Where they curve over the nose is much too bold and long. When I shortened the curve, she looks more feminine.

For the hair, I tried a product new to me, a Speedball Elegant Writer. It is one of Speedball's calligraphy markers. When you draw or write with it, the ink looks black. If you activate it with water, it changes color. First, you get a gray-blue, sort of like Paynes Gray. As it dries, pink and turquoise start appearing. I wish I had worked on larger paper so that I would have had more room for hair. I'll keep playing with the Elegant Writer to figure out how to get a better effect.

The face was done with a black Stabilo All pencil which was activated with water. Once you add the water, it is like working with watercolor except for one thing. When it has dried, it will not reactivate. (The Elegant Writer ink does reactivate after it is dry.) The Stabilo is a waxy pencil that will write over a lot of things, such as glass and plastic (acrylic paint). It is available in a few other colors besides black.

Since I am linking to this post at Art Journal Every Day, I ought to explain that even though this face was created on a single sheet of paper, it will be taped into my Faces Journal. All of my faces are in this ring-bound, 9 in X 12 in journal. If the face was originally done in a bound journal or framed, I photograph it and put the photo into the journal.

My Faces Journal is a working journal. On the back of the face, I list supplies used, the things I like about it, the things I don't like, what I need to work on, etc. I refer back to it often. I'll be starting a new one soon as the current one is about to outgrow the bookrings.

Wishing everyone a good weekend and a good holiday to those in the US.

29 Faces Challenge - Face #2

 

Black Stabilo All Pencil on watercolor paper; highlights in eye - White Sharpie Extra Fine Waterbased Paint Marker

29 Faces Challenge - Face #1

This is the first time I have joined the 29 Faces Challenge. Since I really need to do some face practice right now, I thought maybe this would keep me at it. I might not post every day, but I'll try to create a face every day. I'd like to get myself back where I once was before I take another class.

I was trying out some new watercolor pencils, but decided the paper in this journal does not work well with water. I'll try them another day on watercolor paper.