Drawing Tuesday - facial features

 This topic includes - or starts with - anything to do with the face, human, animal, or otherwise. 

(via https://neurosciencenews.com/object-faces-16827/)

Perhaps you want to focus on a particular feature rather than an entire face? Years ago, I was inspired by Matisse's "rediscovered" drawings of inuit faces

(and see https://eu.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2018/10/26/heard-museum-yua-henri-matisse-and-inner-arctic-spirit/1748104002/) 

to copy all the noses, and shortly afterwards, while sitting idly in a coffee shop, as one did in the good old days, I filled a page in my little notebook with quick, tiny drawings of the chins of passers-by. 

Or, the whole-face method is open to a variety of media, and ranges from "the telling line" (see Matisse!) to full-scale portraiture (Gainsborough etc, or Hockney). Why not try something "in the style of" one of the masters? 

Or, masks.

Starting? https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/drawing/beginners-guide-draw-facial-features/ is a beginner's guide, very to-the-point. 

There are any number of videos online, just google "drawing facial features". 

Pets have faces too! - https://www.art-is-fun.com/drawing-realistic-pets-from-photographs

From  Janet K - I decided on masks and last week went to the Africa gallery at the British Museum. I was disappointed to find that there were no sketching stools and you could not sit on the benches. I chose these heads at random and did a quick sketch of each and took photos. I had a good time drawing them at home. I love the smile on the face in the upper right. All the mouths are so different.

From Sue K - here are my ‘facial features: a trio of well-carved pumpkins, spotted on a local windowsill during Halloween last year.

From Ann -  close up from portraits of nephews

From Richard - Kept it very simple so 'it’s all about me’ in the mirror, which I've not done for nearly 40 years, I reckon. My main facial feature seems to be my spec’s.

From Sue B - my cousin’s grand-daughter in her buggy, which was part of a series of sketches from which I chose one to give on her first birthday this february! 

From Gill - I wanted to try out some Brusho Crystal Colours on different papers. I like to play!

From Joyce - a sideways look at a face I can see in a fallen tree beside Derwentwater. Hard to capture the anguished look! 

From Mags -  fabrics  with masks fit the bill  and is it just me or does the Colour Catcher from a trousers load look like teeth !!?

From Janet B - Fun and games from five years ago. A machine embroidered self portrait from a manipulated photo. 

From Helen - a collection of facial features from Japanese prints

From me - faces from a book of Munakata's woodblock prints. I started with the double face and kept going till the page was full -

He cut hundreds of large woodblocks, often straight onto the wood (without drawing), so I tried a bit of cutting of a face, again using one of his prints as a starting point -

Drawing Tuesday - silhouettes

 "Is a shadow a silhouette?"

The art of silhouette making arose from shadows cast onto a wall and drawn around, in the days before cameras captured the likeness of our loved ones and not everyone could afford to have a portrait painted. (As now.) 

"Two hundred years ago, long before the camera was invented, someone wishing to have an inexpensive portrait created of their loved ones would have visited a silhouette artist.  Within minutes and using only a pair of scissors and a skillful eye, he would have produced a wonderful little image with a remarkable resemblance to his subject.

The name Silhouette traces back to the mid-18th century French finance minister, Etienne de Silhouette. Because his name was synonymous with doing things cheaply and because he was fond of making these images himself, this artform was named after him."

That's a quote from a commercial site, but the Wikipedia article has more info and some examples - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette . Note the frame of the first illustration - very nicely presented!

Artists who come to mind in connection with silhouettes are Lotte Reiniger (hand-crafted animated films), William Kentridge (spectacle on the banks of the Tiber), Kara Walker (exploration of race, stereotypes, gender, and identity throughout American history), but Google identifies quite a few more - search for "silhouette artists famous" and you'll find Elvis Costello among them. This American "girl who cuts up" (b.1894) continued the silhouette art until the 1950s, working as a travelling silhouettist - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Sherman . Among her 10,000 works are 10 presidential portraits.

Back to shadows. Yes, shadow puppets are silhouettes. They give a flat, definite outline. A shadow of a person's profile, too, is based on the contour and gives "a flat slice". Shadows cast by trees, though - they're made up of many layers, as can be seen by the degrees of fuzziness of the edges of closer and farther away leaves. 

How about the work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster, then? Their piles of what looks like random junk are lit in such a way that surprising shadows emerge - https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/tim-noble-and-sue-webster/

From Ann - Yes, is a shadow a silhouette?! On our daily walk with the sun shining brightly I photographed this pic of my husband and foliage! By chance but fortunate!

From Sue K -  based on a pic I took looking up through ginko lives into blue sky. 

l worked in Illustrator to give it a more graphic look.

From Sue B - shadows on a rose i copied from a photo sent by a friend last year…using chalks and charcoal

From Gill - A local tree drawn without leaves .

From Najlaa - This is my silhouette

From Judith - My sons and their daughters in Greenwich Park

From Joyce - in lockdown I took part in the 1 week 100 people sketchbook challenge. Since we were told to stay at home these had to be mostly from photos. I used photos of my grandchildren and the paintings started out as silhouettes to which I then added pen and details. It was a good way to start as it made me look at the overall shape first.

From Mags - When I bought a couple of  cloth head tubes a few years ago , I kept the cardboard heads they came on.  I used them as a template to draw round  and for another version  of   ' unsuitable clothing ' expressing  my irritation with what designers regard as suitable fabrics for face masks! 

From Carol - Here is me on the beach last week, an attempt to posterize a photo.

From me - The idea of framing came from a magazine advert, the woman stepping through a "window" into a landscape. I found other images in magazines and added frames.

Drawing Tuesday - endangered species

The rarity of members of endangered species of wildlife might make it difficult to draw one IRL (in real life). What to do?

https://www.iucnredlist.org/ is the website for the Red List of endangered wildlife - animals, birds, insects, plants, amphibians, crustaceans, fish ... lots of choose from there! It's a bit shocking that 28% of species are on this list. (Not to mention those that are extinct already.) 

An artist who used this list for a textile work is Anita Bruce - it was shown in the Prism show at Hoxton Arches a few years back and you can see it here  or here  or, best of all, on Mags' blog 

In 2020 The Big Draw focussed on endangered species.

This is a school project - the results look good! -  "students worked on black paper to create a chalk pastel drawing using a photograph of their endangered animal as reference. A goal of the drawing was to recreate the colors and patterns observed in the photo as closely as possible. The raised line effect was created by applying a mixture of black tempera paint and Elmer’s glue with a squeeze bottle." Using the colours and patterns ... could be interesting ...

If you're handy with watercolours, why not try a few "character sketches" using blobs of paint, a la Moira Frith  -

As well as animals etc, there are some endangered "species" among humans - men who wear ties at home, perhaps, that sort of thing - not to mention endangered languages (Susan Hiller has made work about this) and what we used to call "manners"....

From Sue K Here’s my sketch of the seemingly struggling figure in the pool.

From Mags -  some  electron micrographs  of Madagascan orchid seeds   that at some point I will draw from, I love the abstract lines and patterns.

From Ann - Here are a couple of sketches for a  course some time ago...endangered not quite yet but probably soon...elephant and leopard.

From Gill - I was a punk for one night only…….for a fancy dress party. Laddered fish net tights, ripped T shirt, bicycle chain and sugared hair to make it stand up.

From Janet K - I wondered what to choose among the 1000s of endangered species. As a Canadian I thought a polar bear would be appropriate.

From Janet B - not too late I hope, here are my polar bear skeleton drawn at the Vets College, and my stuffed Kelvingrove polar bear. They were both drawn four years ago. 

From me - Some of Britain's endangered species - a Ladybird Spider, a Leatherback Turtle, and a Dormouse. Waterecolour, without pre-drawing. And not to scale!

Drawing Tuesday - trees, leaves, grasses

 Self-explanatory topic! Here are a few inspirations. 

William Kentridge's trees are often drawn on book pages

Trees in art history on this blog  (especially John Constable )

Mark Frith's tree drawings (large!), shown at Kew and now online 

Making pen and ink drawings of various trees. At a quick look, there are lots of helpful tips. Also there is mention of white pens. And leaves, and backgrounds.

A video of less than 5 minutes - How to draw a tree with pencil - 

"Trees rarely have curved lines - they are straight lines that change direction". This tree evolves as it goes, rather than being from observation.

Two birds with one stone! - A small project would be to find leaves from several trees you don't know the names of, identify them (free apps are available, eg at https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/how-to-identify-trees/ - or look at a chart online, eg https://www.discoverthewild.co.uk/post/british-tree-leaves-sheet) - and combine them into a drawing or rubbing.

"mixed media trees leaves" here

Work by Blaze Cyan at Eames Gallery here

From Richard - What a lovely day, again! Too hot today to linger over this one.

From Sue K - Couldn’t resist the shadows on the leaves thanks to the blast of sun we’re enjoying. This is Hedychium gardnerarium - no flowers yet!

From Ann - A pen and ink watercolour study last year of Devils Dyke in Sussex and a panoramic view of our regular Ally pally walk in gouache. 

From Sue B - a very quick sketch sitting The Lamb Inn garden in Burford…

From Najlaa - The first tree from my neighbor garden and 2nd one is old Mulberry tree.

From Judith - So delicate, a challenge to get the detail.

From Gill - This is a Mokulito print I did last week. It has a bit of chine colle too. Back on the course today with Margaret C.

From Joyce - Here’s a beautiful gnarled tree at Cowden.

From Janet K - The willow tree again. It's great to see their branches growing out. The trees looked very stark - if sculptural - all winter.

From Mags - I had  grand plans of sitting  on a bench in the Rec which has some magnificant trees  (  Faversham Trees Group  had a labelled trail   for National Tree Week ),  channelling my  inner David Nash .  It was  fabulous  when he  was in residence at Kew and you  could see him working and he gave a wonderful talk to staff. 

 Instead  I had a weeding session in the garden  , mainly dandelions and ragwort,   with some oats and barley that had sprouted  near next doors bird table .  I used  a chromium green Pitt calligraphy pen.

From me - One of the knobbly old plane trees in Finsbury Park. Stripped of its leaves (by the eye of the artist). Inktense pencil and waterbrush.

The black marks have nothing to do with the tree - I'm using empty pages in an old, square sketchbook, and this time had to extend the trunk onto the adjacent page; it looked silly in the [ahem] truncated format.