ABORIGINE BOY

Twelve pages into my journal and I discovered some pretty interesting things about drawing and painting faces.  Here are the top ten:

1.  I have a tendency to make the faces more round or fatter than the photo.
2.  I most often draw the right eye higher than the left eye.  I discovered this by viewing my drawing in the mirror.  Did you know that you can see your mistakes by doing this?
3.  I am at a total loss when it comes to painting with acrylic paint.  Tube paints or paint pens...it makes no difference.  Ugh!
4.  I overwork watercolors.  I wish I could be looser.
5.  I love the Molotow Masking pen.  I was surprised at the fine lines that it would make.  I will surely use this more often.
6.  I love Walnut Ink, sepia tone paintings, and plan to explore this media more.
7.  My second love is the Derwent Intense pencils.  They are so juicy and work wonderfully on the hot press watercolor paper.  I used cold press paper in the past but find the results on hot press paper to be much better!
8.  Chalk paint (Art Deco) works well as a highlight with Derwent Intense pencils.  I learned about using Chalk Paint from Kate Thompson in her Class "Fancy Lassies." She uses them with watercolors!
9.  Prismacolor Pencils are my favorite for drawing whimsical faces.
10. Painting from and studying photos allows you to train your eye to see all the little details...the shadows, highlights and proportions.  Also, the more that you practice...the better that you will become.  Draw...draw...draw.  I can't wait to see my progress at the completion of my journal.

Aborigine Boy was drawn by using an inexpensive PaperMate 0.5mm mechanical pencil that I purchased from Target.  I used a chamois to blend the background.

Until next time....

Hugs,
Ginny

WORKING IN MY JOURNAL OF "FACES"

"EVERY ARTIST DIPS HIS BRUSH IN HIS OWN SOUL, 

AND PAINTS HIS OWN NATURE INTO HIS PICTURES."

Henry Ward Beecher

I had a very interesting conversation with a 94 year old friend of mine who has some very old fashioned ideas about a myriad of topics, in particular "ART."  We happened to be talking about how we define "art."  This all came about when I started to tell her about my journal of "faces."  She quickly interrupted me when I got to the part about finding my inspiration from photos of faces that I find on the internet.  She said "that's not art."  According to my friend, art is drawing or painting from real life figures or landscapes and not from, in her words, "copying a photo."

I think that we can all agree that my friend's definition of "art" is a very narrow and shortsighted view which would leave out many of the masterpieces hanging in art galleries today but yet she is not wrong.  Art is personal...It is whatever appeals to the viewer and what the viewer or artist considers to be art.  If you look on the internet you will find many definitions and no two are alike. There is no right or wrong.  So my question is...why did I feel that I had to defend my position as an artist?

INSPIRATION PHOTO:

For this painting I used Derwent Intense pencils, chalk paint for the highlights on the skin, Molotow yellow paint pen for eyeliner and hair and pan pastels for the blue background.  I love the way the Intense pencils worked on the hot press watercolor paper.  Nice and juicy!

Thanks for stopping by and until next time...

Hugs,
Ginny