I believe I have mentioned before that my ability to draw convincing, expressive faces has deteriorated since I emigrated no doubt as a result of no longer attending a life drawing class. I confess that in my decade of life drawing it was rare for me to produce a portrait that looked like the sitter but I was able to draw an accurate face with character and expression. Over the past eighteen months, my skills have atrophied to the point of being rusted. I am trying, therefore, to practice faces whenever possible to try and grease up my artistic joints and get my skills limber again.
Therefore, when this week’s Documented Life Project prompt was revealed, I instantly thought to draw faces as another opportunity to practice. The suggestion was to doodle and mark make as a layering element and the prompt was “surviving the elements”. This past month has been excruciatingly cold and icy and a dumping of heavy snow last week led to two consecutive snow days for my boys so I could easily have taken the weather route with the prompt. However, with my mind on faces, I decided to personify the four elements: earth, air, water and fire.
The four faces I drew in response to the art journal prompt still lack personality but I am getting better at proportions and eyes with each face I draw. I bought some Prismacolor pencils on sale earlier in the year so I decided to crack the tin open and have a whirl at using them. I don’t normally work with coloured pencils at all so that was a minor challenge. I then doodled and marked in coloured gel pen to fulfil the other prompt for this week. Not a great success but not a disaster either.
A Pict in PA 