Faces, Again

Joy Card

Can you find it?

Face Basics

For the young ladies who will be drawing, these are for beginning practice works. It is to train your mind instinctively to find features in a few strokes. The more you do, the easier they flow. Fill pages! When you learn this, any other face drawing will be easier.

Start with an egg shape, narrower part to the bottom for chin. 

Find vertical and horizontal halves, then quarter line, then eighth line. These will be for eyes, nose base, and mouth respectively.

Add just SUGGESTIONS of eyes, nose base, and mouth. Do Not draw outlines or solid lines. SKETCH!  Like poetry, art should imply. You should leave some things to be filled by the viewer's mind. 

You can finish with wisps of hair outlines and very few accents. Then STOP! 

Then do more. And more. And lots more.  This page  (upper right corner) shows the simplicity of the features. A couple of marks say enough. Do not niggle away at outlining everything. Suggest. The nose base is an M shape. The top lip is also. The bottom lip is a mere line. The centre of the mouth is a stretched out M.  Note the eye placement: one eye space between the eyes. Leave lots of brain room at the top - meaning are eyes halfway down the face oval.

O.K. Let's see what you do. The first hundred "don't count." They won't be masterpieces, but they are very, very necessary to train your hand to do what your mind wants. So keep at it and count. You will see your hundredth (a couple of weeks from now, if you do at least twenty this week) will be much better than your first.

And just because...

... the colors were out and the page was ready. Birds are great for quick sketch practice. You can scribble, dash off brush lines, and be expressive. These were done with one of those multicoloured-lead pencils and a calligraphy brush.

Have fun and sketch away.