Book Text Faces for Art it Friday

 Welcome to Magpieheaven! Recently - thanks to my crafting friend, Mo - I discovered Kim Dellow's 'Art it Friday'. Kim invites anyone with a passion for drawing faces to link up their work here every Friday. Kim's approach is innovative and fun and she has already created some really inspiring faces using different techniques. I was determined to link up again, as I had so much fun last time, both creating my own faces and taking a look at Kim's and those of the other artists who played along. Mo asked me if I would be able to show how I colour my faces step by step. I've tried to do this and to experiment with an idea I had for creating a collage sheet resource of my own. I began by painting a sheet of vintage book text with a wash of Nougat Fresco Finish paint by PaperArtsy.

Next step was to sketch a face in a soft drawing pencil.

Sometimes I copy my faces from magazines or books, but I like to use my imagination and just see what it comes up with. I wanted a face that was reminiscent of a vintage doll. Mo had reminded me of the bisque dolls' faces of years gone by in her comment last week.

Even in the early stages, the colour brings the face more to life. I like to use Inktense pencils, a water-colour pencil which has an intense colour when a little moisture is added. On this face, i used a very dark red for the lips; orange on the cheek bones and fine lines of yellow, olive green and brown around the edge of the face.

I keep adding touches of colour, especially around the edge, layering colours until I was satisfied.

When I'm satisfied with the colours, I wet a brush and blend them over the face until it starts to have depth.

I wanted to keep this face as translucent as possible because I wanted the text to show through and to create the idea of a face emerging from the book page. I should like to experiment with this more to create different characters so this is probably an idea I will return to.

Finally, to tone everything down, I gently blended some Pan Pastel Titanium White into the forehead and over the cheeks and chin. I fixed this by taking some PaperArtsy Satin Glaze and dabbing it gently over the finished face with Cut 'n Dry sponge. I added a little definition with a black Pilot pen.

By scanning the face into my computer on its book text background and then copying a smaller copy of my scan repeatedly into a word document, I was able to create this collage sheet.

I can either print it out and use it as a background for a journal page or use the faces individually for projects like peg-dolls, cards or collages. I see the faces I create as characters in search of a story, or actors ready to take on a variety of roles. I can't wait to see how she will change her personality with different costumes, hairstyles and settings as I place her on different projects. 

With the advent of spring, the sun has been showing his or her face a great deal more, so I played a little with the same idea, but a sun face this time!

Here are a couple of peg dolls in the early stages. I've placed faces and hands on to experiment with ideas before painting and decorating the whole peg.

Here's the Sun looking just a little quizzical! Next week I'll try to show the pegs progressed once the faces were fixed on!

Thank You so much for dropping by this Friday: I do hope you will have a really creative weekend.