Sister, Sister

In 1976, while on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland, my mother had my sister and I sit for portraits.  We were on the boardwalk and the artist drew our portraits with a charcoal pencil in about 15 minutes.

After watching Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's video, All About Faces, I became inspired to try my hand at some faces.  Julie sells face stencils to make it easier to get started.  I've been meaning to buy a couple of her stencils, but being the procrastinator that I am, I just haven't gotten around to it.  So I decided that I would make my own stencil out of the charcoal portrait of my sister.


First, using tracing paper, I traced the primary lines around the face, hair, eyes, and mouth.  Then I used a black Sharpie to darken the lines.  I used a plastic file folder for my stencil.  Transparencies are way too expensive and stencil plastic comes in a roll that is impossible to straighten out.  The file folder worked perfectly.  I just cut it in half, taped the paper with the facial lines to the folder, and started cutting with a razor knife.

I painted a background with acrylics, then glued on some ripped up book pages and sheet music with gel medium.  When that was completely dry, using the stencil, I drew the outlines with a pencil onto the background.

Then I painted the face and hair with Golden Fluid acrylics filling in the outlines.  I used pink and orange to do some shading on the face just like Julie Fei-Fan Balzer said to do.  Then placed the stencil back on and, using black Liquitex paint and a sponge, totally painted on my stenciled face.

I touched up the eyes and mouth afterwards and continued adding stamps and other miscellaneous designs to the picture and it was finished!!

I'm pleased with my first face.  I don't how much it looks like my sister (she doesn't have red hair), but it is a face.

Here's a very fast video from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer on stencile faces.