How to Learn to Draw Faces

As I've mentioned before, I have been learning how to draw faces.  I've always loved to draw and doodle, but I've always been a geometric doodler.  I would draw three dimensional shapes and expand from there.  I rarely ever tried to draw a person or an animal.

A couple months ago, I watched All About Faces by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  She taught me the basics about drawing a face, like eye spacing, lip shape, and shading.  Julie has lots of videos on You-tube and on the Interweave website.  She has a fun personality and takes her time to really show you what she's doing.

I bought Mixed Media Girls by Suzi Blu.  She draws the most adorable, round-faced girls.  She taught me about using the Prismacolor pencils to build a beautiful complexion.  What can I say about Suzi Blu?  She is crazy.  She is so animated, happy, angry, sad....  Her girl's faces are just so pretty!

I also got Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts.  I enjoyed that book.  She didn't focus that much on faces, but I learned how to draw angelic girls.  She also shows you how to do a lot of great backgrounds.

I recently took Tracy Bautista's Girlie Glam Faces online workshop. This was fun because I learned more about decorating a face with whimsical doodles and flowers.  Her work is so colorful.  Love it!

Last week I ordered The Whimsical Face by Jane Davenport.  I finished my first real face from the workshop.  Her faces are a little more realistic than what I have been doing.  Still, certainly not a totally realistic drawing, but slightly less cartoon-like (I can't think of any other word for them).  Obviously, the eyes and lips are over-sized, but that's what I like.  I'm not really looking for total realism.  Jane has a beautiful British accent.  She is detailed about showing you everything she does.  There are a couple times in the video when her head gets in the way of seeing the drawing, because of the camera angle, but still well worth it.

So, I'm very pleased with what I have learned from these women.  They all have different styles, but I feel like I'm learning something from all of them and will develop my own style.

My Jane Davenport-style face.

 

Suzi Blu-style face

 

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer-style face

 

Kellie Rae Roberts-style girl

 

Traci Bautista Girlie Glam-style face

 

 

I know that I still have a long way to go with my faces, but this is proof that anyone can learn how to draw faces, even someone with a history of just drawing straight lines.

 

Goodnight.

Cyndi