29 Faces - Face 18 - The Trout Pout

As you can see by the number of this face and the date I'm still running a bit behind with these 29 Faces but nevertheless am enjoying the process immensely. Certainly learning a lot along the way.

Face 18 - The Trout Pout - perhaps a homage to certain popular poses on Facebook. *Preparing to leg it shortly after I post this!*

Again, starting out with a textured background I already had in my sketchbook, I painted an Acrylic base, outlined in HB pencil and went to town with the oil pastels.

What did I learn with this one? It's really hard to get any detail in oil pastel over such a textured base. 

Thanks for stopping by :)

Rocking My World Friday...

Ooh I have two or three weeks to catch up on. So, what has been making me smile in my World?

Well, Little Monster finally had a tooth break through yesterday so I'm hoping that's what the grumps were about the last few days. We certainly know we've got him lately! He's into EVERYTHING! He took apart the plug on my PC speakers so now, unless I use headphones, I have no sound. He is just a whirlwind of trouble from one end of the house to the other. But so cute! 

Believe it or not - we've found the quickest way to quieten him down is to plonk him in front of a bit of paper with a pencil or paintbrush. I'm not going to pretend I'm not not chuffed about that!

eta: I accidentally clicked post early on this one... but the week is cracking on again so I'll leave you with my wee monster ;)

Thank you so much for stopping by.

29 Faces - 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 - The Skulls

So. With one thing and another I've been falling behind on my 29 Faces. I have been having a tiny (huge) whinge about this at home. My very clever Devvie said "Mum, just draw 6 boxes, one page, six tiny faces." Clever girl. Smart cookie that one.

So in my vain effort to catch up - I give you six tiny cartoon skulls.

Skulls 1, 5 & 6 were loosely copied from here. Skulls 2, 3 and 4 were made up from my noggin.

I have shown both pages of my sketchbook so that Jez can see what I mean about drawing cells. I find them fascinating and therapeutic to draw. The ones on this page are based on (but look nothing like) a picture I saw depicting the structure of a bird disease.

Thanks for stopping by today and taking a peep :)

29 Faces - Face 11 The Zombie

I'm pretty chuffed with this face. Again - not perfect but it's the first zombie I have done completely from my own head and not copied. So in that respect - I'm pleased with how this came out.

I used the very excellent  How To Draw Zombies by Mike Butkus & Merrie Destefano for some hints and tips on how to zombify a face. (Reviewed here.) 

Done in my small sketchbook. Over a background of ink that had come through from the other side, lightly clear gessoed and sanded. The face had a base coat of white gouache and then coloured with oil pastels. The large purple eye is the ink from the background - I liked the colour so incorporated it as the eye.

Shall I mention how I freaked myself out drawing this little cutie? Nah. I'll just blame the episode of Whitechapel I watched the other night for giving me the jitters. 

Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - 9 and 10

My two eldest wanted me to do them a face in the oil pastels. I have a bunch of Strathmore Trading Cards which I experiment backgrounds on - so I thought I'd try a couple of faces on those. 

These backgrounds (forgot to take starting pictures) were where I had dropped wet drawing ink onto water soaked cards. This first one you can just make out where I have also used it to scrape acrylic paint on another project - all adds to a background effect right?

This time I just did a layer of Matte Medium over the background before I started in with the oil pastels - I was being stingy as my clear Gesso is running on empty. This is where I am loving the learning curve that is 29 Faces. I definitely prefer using the oil pastels over sanded down Gesso. I couldn't control it very well at all over the Matte Medium. It wouldn't blend so well for me - just kept moving the underneath layers around. I suppose it has a better tooth to hang on to with the Gesso. 

I also didn't do a base coat of Gouache this time - and you can see the background coming through the faces a lot more. Like I say - steep learning curve. But loving it.

Just as a quick aside - Craig's Mum won the Strathmore Trading Card blanks on their Facebook page ages ago. She gave them to me. I have thrown everything at them: Water, watercolours, acrylics, spritzes, mixed media... and now oil pastels. They take some hammering. If you want to buy some pre-cut ATC/ACEO blanks you wouldn't go far wrong picking up a set of these to play with - if I remember rightly, they come with little envelopes too. I will be buying them again. And no, I am not being coerced/bribed/ paid to say that - just like to pass on info when I like a product. 

Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Face 8

I've had another quick play in Scribbler Too today. I'm falling behind with my 29 Faces and I really don't want to. I love playing with this program so while I'm taking longer with other faces I might intersperse with a few quickies like this.

I like to think this little lady is a Private Eye from days gone by. I get that vibe. She looks like she belongs in a smoky office with an old typewriter, one of those vintage cameras and a tightly belted mac. Don't you think? Maybe some seamed stockings too. Can't you just imagine it? 

I'm also linking up with Darcy's new challenge to produce a face a week. Why not pop over? Especially if you are doing 29 Faces anyway - nowt to lose!

Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Face 7 - Alien Girl

Greetings from rainy, rainy, rainy Kent. Hark - is that Autumn I spy peeking round the corner? 

Face 7 of my 29 Faces and still playing around with oil pastels. 

I drew straight over the top of a background that was already in my sketchbook. I went through a phase of painting cells  for a bit - I still like doing it if I'm honest - they don't resemble anything like what I'm copying but it's kind of therapeutic. The background here was an experiment with drawing ink and then Gelli Plating over the top with masked circles. Trying to get the effect of cells... anyway - I thought it would be a cool background. Both the pages were clear Gessoed and sanded down  before I started drawing.

When I got to this stage I liked the colour of the background in her eyes - so decided to keep that, only adding the whites and a bit of black for her pupils. I also thought the drawing ink made a good hair shape... so she kept that too.

Devvie says she looks like an alien "in a good way." I like her lots I must admit - even more than my blue haired lady. Craig prefers the blue haired lady because she's brighter.  I think everything about this one is more me. I'm tempted to do a zombie in this style!

Man, I'm loving 29 Faces! 
Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Face 6 - Blue Haired Girl

Well... technically still Face 5 but she's finished now. I used oil pastels properly for the first time with her - up till then I had only used the white one. I have fallen in love! How did I go this long without using them? 

Here she is getting a bit of colour to her face last night...

 And with a new 'do' today...

She's not perfect by any means, but I really enjoyed drawing her  - she does make me smile. I've so loved discovering oil pastels too! 29 Faces is definitely getting me trying new things. 

Thanks for stopping by today and taking a peep :)

29 Faces - Face 5

This one is very much a face in progress. Two years ago I signed up for a class called Magical Mythical Makings over at Willowing. It was a new class at the time - mythical creatures inspired by the old masters.  I was so excited to be part of a class as it was starting and I knew a few people who were taking the class too. So that was exciting - I imagined doing it all together.

The very first lesson was to do a Klimt inspired Goddess on a huge canvas. Anyway. Life stuff happened, all that got done was a couple of  initial Klimt "research" pages. (You can see those here.) Well, I have finally commandeered said blank canvas, blown the dust off and we're doing a family collaboration 'thing' for our living room using that. 

I've decided 29 Faces is the perfect opportunity to finally work through any unfinished classes I have, starting with MMM. I was so excited at the time to take this class and Tam has so graciously unlocked the Self Study classroom for me. Initially I'm not intending to do the huge canvas (as I don't have another) so just went straight in on top of those first research pages. Incorporating the collaged swatches and the Klimt images as part of my background.

The face is very much in Tam's style and so far am enjoying the smiley person that's emerging.

I don't have the crayons and paint that Tam uses in her lessons - so am muddling through using Gouache, Acrylic and my beloved Aquacolour crayons instead.

Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Face 4 - Me

I read somewhere that to practise faces it's a good idea to do lots of self-portraits. Got to be pretty hard to offend yourself... right?

I've had a photo in my scrap box  for ages that printed out badly and to big. So I stuck that down on one of my paint mop-up pages in  my journal. Then gessoed and painted over the top in acrylics.

Decidedly dodgy face. But still a face. If nothing else it hammers home my need to practise and draw every day. This is going to eventually have some kind of journalling around it about my love of paint (that's a paintbrush in my mouth - original photo here.)

Close up of dodginess

 Enjoying the process so far - it's certainly getting me thinking! Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Two & Three

I was looking at a friends previous 29 Faces experience and I noticed one of her faces was done using a program called ScribblerToo. I loved it and wanted to have a play myself - it's so easy and addictive. I love the abstract effect.

Three quarter profile #2/29

Side profile #3/29

Even Craig had a go - don't tell him but I really love his face! He's already proclaiming it a masterpiece!

Craig's face

So I want to try and play around at this technique with actual pen or pencil and paper... hmm.

Thanks for stopping by today :)

29 Faces - Kick Off

I've seen the 29 Faces challenge around Blogland for a while now but always when it's a bit of the way through. It's starting again today so I'm jumping in. The challenge is to create 29 Faces within the 30 days of September. Any which way creatively - preferably human-ish faces. Hoping this will be a good way to be creative every day and try out some new techniques or brush up on my drawing.

Ayala Art (the host) describes the challenge thus:

Get all your supplies ready to go. Make 29 faces in 30 days. 1 day of room to wiggle :oD

*Any style, any level of experience.
*All media welcome, all substrates.
*Unfinished projects are welcome too!

I'm still working my way through the ICAD challenge. (Even though the actual challenge is over.) I'm determined to have the full set of 61 cards... and also now, 29 faces - no more giving up half way through. 

So my first face is collage on a 6x4" index card.

Magazine cuttings (her dress is a sofa!)
Scrapbook Paper
Index card is one used for paint mop ups/smooshings
White gelli pen
Black Copic & Biro

I think she needs something more - a little light tattooing like Virginia's tattooed ladies maybe. Still - as a first quickie to get me started - she'll do for now while I ponder her.

Thanks for stopping by today - back soon with more faces :)