Art Class 6 - Sketches of facial features

Thank God, back on more familiar turf for this week's class.  Kim asked us to bring in close up pictures of eyes, noses, mouths and ears so that we could do more detailed sketches in various media (if we wanted).

I should point out that each class is 2 hours but there's often 10 minutes at the start where Kim discusses what we're to do, and a coffee break halfway through that's probably about 20 mins long, perhaps longer.  So we're only actually working for about 90 minutes which, in the scheme of things, isn't terribly long, especially if you've become deeply engrossed.

Anyway, back to this class.  I prepared by heading off to Google images again and printed off a selection of body parts.  I chose 3 different eyes, including an elderly one (for the wrinkles and stuff); 3 different noses - a big, old man's conk, Barbra Streisand's and Posh Spice's; 3 different mouths - a woman's, a man's and a baby's.  I figured I'd decide on the day which of these I'd choose to draw and, if there was time, to do more than one of each.  I'd completely forgotten about the ears!

This class was pretty straightforward, we were just to do more detailed drawings in our chosen media so, of course, I chose pencil/graphite stick.  I really should push myself out of my comfort zone more and try and get to grips with colour but I'm a coward.

I'm pleased with the results.  It seems I can do profiles and I can do individual body parts but put them all together and it just looks like an inept medical experiment.

These are the eyes I chose:

And I decided to go with the top one as there was some very nice shadows going on there:

Next was the nose.  This was the one I chose, the big ol' conk:

Which came out like this:

We next had to do an ear and I realised my problem so Kim offered to model hers for a very quick five minute sketch:

Finally, a mouth.  I decided to go with the baby's mouth as it was so plump and squishy and a more interesting shape than the other two I'd picked:

This is how it came out:

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how they've come out.

Next week is half term, after that there's only 3 or 4 weeks left and we've got to spend them all doing a portrait of someone.  This means that we have to persuade someone to sit for us (not in class, I hasten to add!  There's 14 of us and if we all brought in a model, we wouldn't fit in the room!).   The idea is to take photos and work from them.  I've already decided that The Lovely Husband is going to have to be my model and I quite fancy doing a portrait of him asleep, seeing as that's how I see him most of the time.  But, then again, maybe I should have him facing the window and I can do a profile instead.  I think I'll just have to take a selection of photos and decide which pose I want to use.

Then there's the thorny question of what media to use.  Kim would like us to use colour, i.e., acrylic paints or pastel, but I think we all know how I feel about me using colour.  She did suggest I might like to do a black and white picture, which is a thought, but I'll have to think about it.  It's a bit daunting because, obviously, I want to do something good but me and colours just don't mix very well.

And that's a hell of a First World problem to have, isn't it?