Week 15 - Weekly Art Challenge - Faces

This week for the Weekly Art Challenge, I've been working from Jane Davenport's Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces. I enjoy creating portraits and want to be able to create faces better and use them in mixed-media artwork and also to create portrait paintings. I've done a few faces in past blogs posts (see posts here).

This week I did the exercises for "the Hot Zones" and "Jane-style whimsical proportions."  In the hot zones, Jane explains the distance between eyes, the stack of the nose, mouth and chin, how the lips line up with the eyebrows,  how the ears line with our facial features, and finally, the curve of the cheeks. In whimsical proportions, Jane shows how the proportions can be played with for drama and to look for what we find interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

These are the "whimsical  proportions" I focused on this week, while using the "hot zones" to keep the drawings balanced and proportionally pleasing.

Realistic Proportions, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

Jane-style Proportions, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

Fey, Tilted Eyes,, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

Pixie, Large Wide-Set Eyes, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

Feline, Large Eyes, Bunched Features, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

Hollywood, Large Lips, Small Noses, 3"x3", pencil and pen on mixed-media paper

I think I still need some work on the faces, but playing with the proportions and placement of the features is a learning experience. It was interesting to see how varying these elements affects the way the face looks. It also helps me to know that I do not have to have realistic proportions all the time when working with portraits - they just need to be balanced and pleasing. Thanks, Jane!


Keep creating!
Lynnita