PAINTING FACES

I just love drawing and painting faces.  If I can't think of anything to draw, I will rough out a face in pencil on plain paper and color it with Prismacolor pencils. Eventually, the colored pencil drawing will make its way into one of my journals.

Lately, I have been experimenting with using different mediums as well as creating different whimsical looking faces.  I tried drawing faces with cute short turned up noses and long faces with long noses... girls  with big eyes and some with squinty eyes..... tiny full lips and wide thin lips.   Can you tell that I looooove to draw faces?  It is so much fun to see the personality of each girl develop right in front of your very eyes and on a piece of paper!!  Very addictive!

My technique for colored pencil faces is pretty much the way everyone else does it.  First using a lightweight paper (I use a good quality inkjet printing paper but any smooth paper or card stock will work) I lightly sketch the face, hair and upper portion of the body and clothes and then ink it using a micron or pitt pen.  Next, I erase all the pencil lines.

To apply the colored pencil for the first layers, I use a medium pressure with small circular motions.  First, I apply the lightest color (light peach) to the face leaving any white or highlighted area.  Next, a slightly darker color (peach) is applied for contouring around the perimeter of the face, nose, eyes and lips.  For the final and darkest shading, I use the darkest color (burnt ochre) around the perimeter of the face, side and bottom of the nose (not as much as the previous layer).  

Now I am ready to blend it all.  Blending is done by using the lightest color or white and going over the entire face by using a more firm pressure than what was used on the first and previous layers.  Once again in a small circular motion. What begins to happen is the wax from the pencil begins to move around the paper and blend into the lightest color...... eliminating the grainy look of the pencil marks. I may need to repeat the contouring process if the contour is not dark enough but the idea is to build the layers slowly.

The cheeks are added by using a rose color in a circular motion with the darkest and firmest pressure in the center of the cheek and fading to a lighter pressure and color on the perimeter of the apples of the cheek.  Once again, I blend with the lightest skin color or white.  That's pretty much the short of it!!

Here is one of the girls colored with Prismacolor pencils.  The background was made by using Faber Castell Gelatos with a wash of water.  After it dried, I rubbed the gelato stick over a stencil.

I hope that this inspires you to try coloring faces using Prismacolor pencils.  It takes practice but I think that it is well worth it!  Hope that you do too!

ALTERED BOOK JOURNAL USING ALCOHOL MARKERS

I tried painting a page in my "altered book journal" with alcohol markers, Copic, Prismacolor and Letraset Promarkers...right over a text page that was not gessoed and I like the results.  It didn't bleed through to the backside of the page too bad and I am confident that any bleed through can be gessoed over.  The markers went down smoothly like I was painting on bristol.

The black rectangular area under the purple flower was a B&W photo in the book that I painted over with markers.  You can't tell can you?  I think that it really adds to the overall interest of the page.  It would be flat and look all the same with out it.  You know what they say, "If you can't beat em...join them.  In this case I chose to "join them" and make the photo area part of the design.  The black polka dot washi tape also helped to balance the page.

ALTERED BOOK JOURNAL - MY FIRST ENTRY

I have always been fascinated by journals made from old books....the way the text and pictures peek through the artist's work.  So you can imagine how excited I was when at a Library sale I found a 7" x 10" old forgotten ART book.  Just the right size for journaling.  Not too small and not too big.  Just right!!!  The book is titled "History of Art for Young People."  It has a beautiful sturdy cover that I will eventually embellish with fabric, lace and some of my art creations.... that I will somehow transfer to fabric.  I haven't decided yet what transfer method I will use.

 

The first thing that I did to prepare the book for journaling was to remove all the colored artist's plates and then some of the text pages in order to make the book thinner.  This is necessary so the book will not be too thick after the pasted papers and embellishments are added.   Next, I lightly gessoed the remaining pages.......being careful not to cover up too much text. 

I think the next "old book" journal that I make, I might try to leave some of the pages without gesso and use alcohol markers on them.  The pages in my book are a very good quality semi-gloss paper and the markers bleed through very little.  If the bleed through becomes a problem I will either gesso the backside of the page or glue two pages together.

Now, I am ready to paint my pages!!  I probably will reserve this journal for the pasted handmade papers that I made last year in Deborah Cooper's class at 21 Secrets....maybe some ephemera and magazine cutouts that I have been saving just for this purpose.   I don't think that I will use any drippy paint techniques because I am not sure how the pages will take the wet solutions....but who knows?  Isn't visual journaling, after all, about being brave and experimenting?  We'll see where this goes!

This is a peek at the first page in progress.  I might add to it later.  This page was done with a somewhat  dry brush using Koi watercolors.  The lettering was done with a Pitt pen.

Let me know if you made this type of journal before and any highlights of the experience that you would like to share. 

Until next time,

Ginny