2015 Topic 19 Faces {Challenge}

 2015 Topic 19: Faces

Hi everyone, Leandra here and today I am very excited to share with you information on the topic of 'faces'.....OMG DON'T groan....just bear with me! 

Yes, I know what you are thinking, along with 99% of the rest of the population, drawing is one of those things too many of us think we can't do - usually because we've been told by someone who supposedly 'knows' eg former art teacher, or perhaps you have already decided yourself that you are totally rubbish at it. 

Well poo to that! I'm here to challenge you and say that I 100% believe you CAN do it. And so do plenty of other people out there!

Collage Portrait - By Michelle Caplan

If you can understand a few basic principles, and then learn how to imitate a facial-style you like, then I think 'drawing' a face is totally possible for anyone to master.

Art by Molly Harrison

Once you find out what works best for you, you will grow in confidence and skill. Honestly, I promise it is not as hard as you think...tonight I'm going to help you 'see' how we start with an egg, and turn it into a face. Perhaps cartoon style, perhaps abstract, or realistic, whichever you prefer, it doesn't really matter - you can twist this topic to your existing strengths and personal preferences, and best of all, you can work with any media you like, collage, paint, crayons, watercolor, pencils etc etc...

 Doodle Doll: by Trish from Trilovart

Before we get into what is out there now let's see who won the Topic 18: Wearable Art Challenge. 

Hi, Darcy here. I have loved seeing the entries for the past fortnight, some really inventive creations. It is always a real treat for me to see stamps used in unusual ways or on unusual substrates. Well done everyone, wear/use your creations with pride. 

The winner of Wearable Art is:Jane Castle from Castle-Kelly Crafts

Please get in touch with Darcy by emailing darcydotneedles@hotmail.com to claim your prize.

Ok, so it's Leandra back to explore the Topic 19 of 2015: Faces..... 

This topic will be explored over the next 2 weeks on the PaperArtsy blog from October 11-25, 2015.

Tonight i'm going to link you to lots of artists online with great information, classes and tutorials on drawing. All kinds of styles and its lots of fun!

First up, let's start with the making of the above page by Nika. I am sure you can all relate easily enough to how the background is made, a little paint, a few squirts of dye sprays, and then, she cleverly only add the details for half a face, which means no need to worry about the actual face outline, symmetry or driving yourself bonkers worrying about balance etc. She simply outlines and eye, the nose and a mouth. and builds from there. Here shading is added with crayons, pencils, watercolour, seals with some matte medium, adds more touches of white. I'm sure you'll agree it's quite do-able. For the specifics and intricacies of how it was developed, watch this lovely video.

This is another portrait that I pinned ages ago... 

I think it is by Shonna Bucaroff, her etsy page is here. She has used and blended all my favourite colours in the background, and I particularly love the contrast of colours emerging from behind the turban. But it is the eyes matching the turban that really pulls you in, and I think this style of 'eyes' is not too hard to create yourself...particularly if drawing eyes is a new thing for you.

The lips are also really  pretty, so sometimes, its good to pin specific 'facial features' that you like, then try to recreate them yourself. The eyebrows are also nice and soft, and look at the shading under the eyes....when you start to look at a face as the separate parts, you can pick the bits you like, and try to recreate them yourself until you figure out 'how' to draw eyes from memory. 

pinned from Westbrook Fine Art

Here is another nice starting point. The collage background is obliterated somewhat by opaque layers of texture and soft neutral colours. The eyes are simple cats-eye ovals with colour and piercing straight-ahead pupils. A barely-there nose, and simple lips, with soft skin tones added to the 'shadow' side of the portrait.... you can just see a soft pencil jaw outline to the lower right, and left of the face. Very minimalist. The lips and eyes are clearly the most 'worked' areas in terms of detail and shading.

by Dan Casado

I really love the style of Dan Casado, its more abstract in style than the examples above, and if you are hung up on what a nose, the eyes of a mouth should look like, then he challenges those assumptions with bold, simple strokes for noses, the eyes spread wide and pop outside of the face's boundary, and simple lips without expression. But underneath the simplistic style of the portrait, you can identify depth of layers in both collage elements and colour.

OK, so maybe you are still not feeling confident about adding facial features...well guess what, you don't have to! That's removed all your excuses! I love this blog post from Tina Walker about how she started sketching by doing a Christy Tomlinson class. In the post she documents how she created the piece above with lots of gorgeous close up details. There are also pics of the canvas backgrounds which are equally gorgeous before she sketches on top! Awesome to see the process!

Which brings us to the area of whimsy vs realism. If you pursue to explore a whimsy style of face, then suddenly all the rules of placement go out the window. Eyes can be teeny tiny or massive. Features can be spread apart, and this allows you to be more unique, such as the example below from the etsy shop PBS Art Studio.  

Look at how the nose and lips are teeny tiny, and the eyes spread wide, even the cheeks are at the lower periphery of the very round face. If you are starting out sketching, I think it is often much easier to start exploring a variety of whimsy style extreme facial features, because there is less expectation of what is 'allowed' than realistic faces. It also is easier to develop your own style of face within a whimsy genre.

For example Suzi Blu.... 

Suzi offers a variety of online classes from whimsy-style through to realistic faces. She always teaches with in depth videos that take you through the steps in an achievable manner. She has a book Mixed Media Girls that also has great information, particularly if you are a beginner in sketching.

There are lots of artists who rock this 'whimsy' genre, Kelly Rae Roberts is one of my favourites...

Here's a video of how Kelly Rae Roberts crates one of her easily recognisable pieces.

Misty Mawn is another who I have admired for many years, I seem to remember she started out quite whimsy-ish, and her style seemed to influence many people...now I see more realism in her work. I adore her beautiful, haunting style and colour palette....

 by Misty Mawn

by Misty Mawn

Time for some talent from down-under! A great teacher, Jane Davenport....

You can read about Jane's creative story here. She offers all manner of online classes .

And lets not forget Tamara La Porte (aka Willowing). Life Book 2016 is now open for registration, on this course you receive weekly prompts and video instruction from Tamara and her other well-known tutors, not just about faces, but all kinds of explorative mixed-media techniques, products and ideas are presented. 

Closer to home, our own talented PaperArtsy designers share their talents too. Clare Lloyd has her own preferred facial style, and she regularly shares on her blog her fantastic, bright and cheery tags. Her face stamps are easily adapted into tags, journal pages and more.

Heres a spooky sample with Clare's stamps by Lauren Hatwell....

And I made this journal page with another of her stamps...that is certainly a cheats way to make it look like you drew a face...but instead you use on of Clare's stamps!

There are lots of samples with Clare's stamps on my Faces Pinterest page.

Next up what about UK talent Kim Dellow...

Kim Dellow has a 'show your face' feature on her blog where you can link up your progress and share and see what other 'facers' are up to. There are always lots of PaperArtsy people linking their creativity there...for example this week there was an awesome link from...

Debs Wainwright . She has been playing about with a digital app called procreate for the last few weeks, here is one of the digi portraits she made in the app. (Here is a good video explaining what you can do on/with the procreate app).

Here is a video Debs uploaded this week showing how she has used the app. Fascinating!

Julie Ann Lee has (over a series of blog posts) been turning her family into caricatures/ cartoon characters. I urge you to go and read the back-story on her blog for more info, but here are a couple of her pictures shared this past week that are just fantastic in detail and humour...

Lets not forget another PA Designer, Darcy Wilkinson who has a 'faces' link on her blog that you should check out for some awesome inspiration. When she came to 'V Festival' with us in 2014, she saw a band called Kodaline, and was inspired to sketch the lead singer. You can read about the blog post here and this is the final piece. just one of many of Darcy's protraits on her blog.

And here is a video showing how she developed this piece...amazing detail!

Below is a great video from Dina Wakley on getting started drawing a face. If you have no idea how to start, then watch this! In this video she shows the basics of sectioning a face to position the eyes, nose and mouth in a realistic location. Her finishing is quite scribbly, which also then allows for a more 'artistic' style of journalled face. Following this method, particularly if you are a beginner, shows you how fast you can create a basic face shape. If you get this bit sorted, then when you see pictures of other faces online, you will soon learn other options for eyes, noses, mouths and gradually you will develop your own style and preferences...but we all have to start somewhere, and this is a great place to start!

Here is a typical 'Dina' face coloured and scribbled in a really bold way....

And another...

So I think you have more than enough to get you started and inspired about faces! As I said at the start, once you get the basics sorted (like in the Dina video) you can then adapt easily enough to your own personal preferences. The more you do, the better you get, and the more 'automatic' the drawing process becomes!

I have left out loads of amazing images and artists whose work I wanted to share tonight, but please, if you follow my pinterest board, you will see plenty more there. 

I am really looking forward to seeing what you create over the next 2 weeks!

Leandra

Topic 19: Faces PaperArtsy Blog Challenge

We'd love you to share your ideas and link up your creativity to this page. Please familiarise yourself with the challenge guidelines below before entering.

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Faces link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Oct 25th , winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

1. The challenge is a chance for you to show how you have been inspired by a particular technique of the fortnight. Your entry should contain:

- a mention of which post inspired you and why, and 

- a link in your blog post to that original post on the PA blog.

The whole concept of this challenge is 'play along with us'. You are encouraged to put your own twist on ideas you see on our blog. We love to see how you are inspired and your twist!

2. The link you put on our linky page must lead directly to the specific post on your blog where you have explored the technique/ idea mentioned in point 1 above. Don't link to the home page of your blog, or we will be unable to find the post to leave you comments.

3. Spam links will be deleted.

4. We prefer your challenge post is created exclusive to our challenge, but if our topic fits perfectly with another challenge, then of course your post may link to both if you feel it is appropriate.

5. You are most welcome to use stamps/ products/ substrates you have to hand from a variety of companies, we do not expect you to exclusively use PA products - it's lovely when you do though!

6. You can enter as many times as you like in the fortnight. We don't want to restrict your creativity or participation! Link closes at 17:00 Sunday Oct 25th   (London Time)

7. The winner of the random draw will receive a £50 credit to be redeemed on the PaperArtsy Website, the credit includes VAT and postage. We request that one of your purchases is an A5 rubber stamp. You can add any other items to your basket, but the final total should not exceed £50

8. Each Sunday fortnight the winner will be announced at 19:00, also, in the same post, the link for the next fortnight will be posted. It's your responsibility to claim your prize coupon from Darcy: email her darcydotneedles@hotmail.com

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!