I Drew a Face!

I've been working some lately in my paper art journal (I still like doing the digital pages, too...you'll see me kind of jump back and forth between digital and paper projects).  As I've been browsing work by other art journalers, I've admired how they can draw faces, and wanted to try it myself.  I know this isn't going to win me any art contests.  But seriously...I haven't drawn a face probably since elementary school.  It's so true that we all, at some point, notice that others are better at a certain skill than we are, and often stop doing it.  This was true for me with drawing.

Even though it was scary, I looked around for a beginner's class, and found Jane Davenport's Draw Happy online workshop.  This is a mini-class to kind of jumpstart a beginner and get them going.  I'm not going to lie --- it was intimidating at first, and just doing some of the exercises took me awhile.  My first few attempts, I just sat there, trying to turn off all the negative talk in my head.  I didn't necessarily like the first few things I drew, but it got me over the fear of trying.  And, since I did my drawings in my art journal, I figured that the only one who would see them would be me.  This was my third or fourth attempt, and wanted to just go for it using the supplies I had.  And guess what?  I didn't hate it when I was all finished!

The cool thing about drawing faces in an art journal is that it's OK if something on your face is out of proportion or even not a typical flesh tone.  I purposely gave mine pink and green hues.  Even if  something is drawn out of proportion, it makes for a really cool page.

So what do you do if you aren't ready to draw your own faces by hand?  The Crafter's Workshop has awesome templates for scrapbooking and art journaling, and there are several face templates.  This is a fun and easy way to put a face on a project.  In the page below, I used the "Edith and Maude" template:

 You can see that I just used the face on the right to create my image.  I outlined the face very lightly with a regular pencil, then went over it with some Derwent Inktense pencils.  I then went back and erased my gray pencil lines, and activated the ink from the Inktense pencils with some water.  I then went over some areas with bit of watercolor paint, and outlined the face with a couple of Gelly Roll pens.   It was pretty fun --- the great thing about an art journal is that you can always cover your mistakes, or leave them be.

So tell me --- how do you feel about drawing?  When was the last time you did any? Are there some of you who do it everyday?  Would you rather do housework than draw?  Does anyone draw using some type of software and a pen tablet?