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

 

 





                                

 

All About Faces

I worked on my faces again today.  Several months ago, I downloaded a video by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer called All About Faces.  I had watched it before, but today I decided to actually DO the exercises.  I had purchased a couple of these little chipboard things at Michaels for $1.50.  It's 4 pieces of 5 X 5 inch chipboard, held together in the corner with a metal ring.




I gessoed each piece of chipboard, front and back.  The one in the photo, above, had decorative edges.  The one that I used for my faces had straight edges.

First she shows you how to draw the outline of a face and learn the different areas that are recessed and protruding and how to shade them accordingly.

Then we moved on to painting a face.  Basically  I drew the outline, painted the hair, then used 3 colors to shade the face.

Here's my laughing girl -

She does this little tag exercise in the video.  I used a tag that I had decorated with alcohol inks, acrylic paint, and stencils.  I think this turned out really cute.

Here's a link to the workshop.  I enjoyed it. Julie also shows you how to collage a face with fabric, paint a face on fabric, and using a stencil for the faces.  It's $16.95 and you can download it right away.  I have gotten a few videos from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  She is very natural and easy to understand.  She shows all of the supplies, which I really appreciate.

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.