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29 June 2021

Drawing Tuesday - facial features

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


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

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.


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




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 -




1 comment:

  1. I see in some of Munakata's faces, and then in your versions, a strange doodad above the eyebrow. Is it a brow piercing? A third eye? A dueling scar? A bindi dot? Inquiring minds want to know

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