A Face a Day in May - No. 6

(Sharpie on paper)

From a While Ago...

In posting all these faces, I realized I never posted this fun little piece I did for a friend's daughter for her birthday last year.

This is the sweet birthday girl

I keep meaning to do some more of these. I even have a frame all ready to go. I need more studio time! My day job is getting in the way of my artistic endeavors. Anybody else have that problem? :)

A Face a Day in May - No. 5

(Pen on paper)

A Face a Day in May - No. 4

(Ink and Prisma colored pencil)

A Face a Day in May - No. 3

(Pen and Prisma colored pencil)

A Face a Day in May - No. 2

(Pen and ink on paper)

A Face a Day In May - No. 1

I've been looking for some inspiration/motivation lately and this is what I came up with...A Face a Day In May.

I'll be drawing a face every day and posting them here. I'm working in a little spiral notebook that's around 5"x 7". I like the idea of working in a very non-intimidating, portable book. If I don't like one, I'll tear it out and start again.

Here's the first one:

(Pen and ink on paper)

Feel free to join me on your own "A (fill in whatever you'd like) a Day In May" drawing challenge! And remember to link back here so I can see them.

First Friday Art Class for April 2012 - We're So Fashion!

This month's class was all about FASHION!

We talked about the history of fashion illustration. We talked about how in fashion illustration everything is exaggerated--we want our drawings to be TALL and THIN. When doing a realistic drawing, you'd want your (adult) subject to be about 6 heads tall. In fashion, we went for 7-9 heads tall. If your subject is wearing a hat, make it dramatic. If you can add feathers or sparkle, DO IT! :)

We looked at lots of examples from three of my absolute favorite fashion illustrators: Kathryn Elyse, Julie Johnson and Brooke Hagel.

And then we used these wonderful tutorials from Brooke Hagel:
1. Poses - the concept of waistline and hipline and load bearing leg were hard to get at first but worth the effort because once you get an understanding of it, your drawing will improve immensely!
2. Faces - just by doing some simple measurement markers, you'll know exactly where to put the eyes, nose and mouth.
3. Lips - This is a great tutorial to get that model pout just right!
4. Hair - (we didn't get to this one, but it's good!)

Usually in class I work on a white board - this is what it looked like this week (notice our cartoon face from our October Class on the left side--notice he's crossed out. We don't want any chubby, funny faces on our fashion drawing) :

The girls did so well and were really engaged in drawing some lovely fashion illustrations. They did a great job!!

Their homework is to practice, practice, practice! And do some gorgeous original fashion designs.