Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Drawing the Structure of the Head and Face

Proportions of the Human Head

To draw the human head accurately, first become familiar with the basic proportions. Traditional rules of proportion show the face divided into six equal squares, two by three. The upper horizontal division is roughly at the 'third eye' level mid-forehead, the lower at the base of the nose. The eyes sit on the horizontal centre, the mouth on the centre of the lower third.



If you are skeptical of such simple mathematics, try it out on some models in magazines - it works! While this is an ideal which does not account for racial and individual variation, observing these basic proportions gives you a starting point to measure against.

By ensuring your basic proportions are correct to begin with, you will avoid major re-draws at a later stage of the drawing.

To construct a well-proportioned head, follow these simple steps.



  • Begin with a ball. 
  • Drop a line from mid-forehead to the chin. 'Slice off' a circle at the side of the head, and from the front of this circle, curve a line down to the chin. Complete the plane of the face with a line on the other side. Now add the jawline. 
  • Construct the nose, indicate mouth and chin position and elongate skull slightly. (The distance from chin to crown is almost the same as from forehead to the back of the skull).

Drawing Tips - Top 10 Mistakes Beginners Make

Common Drawing Errors and How to Fix Them

By Helen South

Because drawing is often self-taught, you tend to keep making mistakes much longer than when a teacher is available to help. Here are the 10 most common mistakes beginners make when they learn to draw. Some big, some small, all fixable. Check and see whether these errors crop up in your drawings, and get some tips on fixing them.

1. Drawing With a Hard Pencil

If you have no very dark shadows and the whole picture is rather pale, check your pencil. Are you using a Number2 (HB) pencil? These are too hard to draw with (though they are handy for light shading). Get a B, 2B and 4B for darker values.

2. Portraits from Flash Photography

This is the major cause of beginner drawing problems. Using flash photography flattens the features, giving you nothing to work with. When the person is facing you, it is very hard to see the modeling of the face, as the perspective vanishes behind their head, and add a cheesy snapshot grin and you make life very hard! Have the person turning slightly to one side so you can model their face, with natural lighting to give good skin-tones, and a natural expression to show their real personality.

3. Incorrect Head Proportions

Because of the way we focus on a person's features, we usually draw them too big and squash the rest of the head.

4. Twisted Features

Because we are used to looking at a person straight-on, we naturally try to make their features look level when we draw them. If their head is on an angle, this results in strange distortions in the picture. Sketch guidelines first to ensure that the features are on the same angle as the rest of the face.

5. Pet Drawings from Human Eye Level

When you take a photograph standing up, you are looking down at your pet. They have to look up, and you end up with their head seeming much bigger than their body, and a rather odd expression on their face. Have someone distract them so they aren't staring down the lens, and squat down so the camera is at their head level, and you'll get a much better reference photo.

6. Being Afraid of Black

Often when shading, the shadows don't go past dark gray. If your value range is restricted to in some cases half what it ought to be, you are limiting the modeling and depth in your drawing. Put a piece of black paper at the corner of your drawing, and don't be afraid to go dark. Really dark.

7. Outlining in Value Drawings

When value drawing, you are creating an illusion with areas of tonal value. When you use a hard drawn line to define an edge, you disrupt this illusion. Let edges be defined by two different areas of tonal value meeting.

8. Drawing on the Wrong Paper

If your drawing is pale, it might be the paper. Some cheap papers have a sheen on the surface that is too smooth to grab the particles off the pencil. A thick notepad has too much 'give' under the pencil to allow you to apply enough pressure. Try a basic photocopy/office paper, or check the art store for cheap sketch paper. Place a piece of card under a couple of sheets to give a firmer surface. If you are trying to do even shading, some sketch papers can be too coarse, giving an uneven texture. Try a hot-pressed Bristol board or similar smooth drawing paper.

9. Scribbled Foliage

Don't use circular scribbles to draw foliage. Use more convex shaped scumbling - like crescent shapes and scribbly calligraphic marks - to draw the shadows in and around clusters of foliage, and your trees will look much more realistic.

10. Wiry, Pencil-Line Hair and Grass

If you draw every hair or blade of grass as a pencil line, you'll end up with a horrible, wiry, unnatural mess. Use feathery pencil-strokes to draw the shadows and dark foliage behind areas of grass.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Father’s Day Cutout Frame

Is Dad's closet filled with Father's Day neckties? Looking for something special the kids can give Dad? I know my husband loves when our son gives him something handmade. I love when I receive them on Mother's Day because they come from the heart. Well, I found a picture frame over at Martha Stewart's that kids will enjoy making and Dad's are going to love it.

The present will stand proudly on a desk or bureau with the assistance of bent paper clips. The photographs, trimmed to show kids' faces, peek through the holes of the letters.

Frame How-To

Photocopy and cut out the frame template. Lay the template over lightweight card stock; trace with a pencil and cut out. Mom can cut out the middle parts of each letter. Trim photos to fit the openings, making them slightly larger than the holes; tape them behind the frame. To make the frame stand up, bend open two paper clips and tape the small sides to the backs of the letters at the very bottom.

The Big-Ass Book of Crafts

by Mark Montano

Mark Montano is part of the design team for TLC’s While You Were Out and the host of TLC’s Ten Years Younger, as well as co-host of the Style network’s My Celebrity Home. He is a contributing editor to CosmoGIRL! magazine, and his weekly column, “Make Your Mark,” appears in more than seventy newspapers across the country. Mark is the author of Super Suite and Dollar Store DÉcor and co-author of Window Treatments and Slipcovers for Dummies.

The Big-Ass Book of Crafts is packed with ideas for sprucing up your living space; concocting fabulous, all-natural body products; designing your own  unique stationery; and creating countless other crafts that will convince your friends and loved ones that you're the secret love child of Martha Stewart (only much, much cooler).

Forget crocheted doilies and itchy knit sweaters -- TLC's While You Were Out top designer Mark Montano has created stylish and imaginative projects that range from a Warhol-esque Ultrasuede iPod case to photo-adorned boxer shorts to African mask patio chairs to wooden night-light boxes. Divided into sections that include Outdoorsy (ideas to enhance your backyard), Dishing It Out (decorating plates using different techniques), You've Been Framed (innovative picture framing ideas), and Can I Have a Light? (creating and decorating lamps, lanterns, and chandeliers), it's as entertaining to read as it is endlessly inspiring. With more than one hundred and fifty inventive and fun projects, The Big-Ass Book of Crafts is the perfect activity book for readers of every mood, budget, and skill level.

  • Paperback: 377 pages 

  • Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment; Original edition (February 19, 2008)


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    How To Draw Caricatures

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    Friday, June 3, 2011

    Show off your Drawings

    Here's one of my drawings. Please feel free to comment and if you would like to show off a drawing, please leave me a comment.

    Drawing Shading Exercise

    Have you been practicing your techniques? Well, I have a drawing exercises for you today.

    What you'll need is a light colored rock, ping-pong ball or something that is light in color and round in shape so you can get some shadows. A piece of copy paper and a 2B pencil.

    Now place your object on a table where there is some strong, directional light. You can use a single lamp or window as your light source. Adjust your light as needed so that your highlights and shadows are clear. Do you see how the light source is casting shadows on your object. Look at the shadows, highlights and the reflected light that is bouncing back from the table. You may not have any reflective light if your table is dark.

    Observe the diagram to the right. You may even use this if you can not find an appropriate object. Notice the shapes that the shadows and highlights create. Very lightly sketch the outline of the object and the shapes that are created by the shadows and highlights.

    Let's start with the darkest shadow first. Without lifting you pencil, use a continues back and forth shading technique to cover the area. So as not to create just a solid band of stokes on your paper, vary your stroke lengths and as you're going back and forth, use a rounding motion at each end.

    Continue shading the reflective light and other highlights with lighter stokes, but remember to use directional lines or curve your stokes so that it appears as if the shadows are wrapping around your object.

    To give your overall object some texture, try an overhanded grip and shade very, very lightly with the side of your pencil.

    Finally, use a kneadable eraser in a dabbing motion to lift out, rather than rub, the graphite where you've applied to much pencil and to re-work some lighter areas.

    Remember to draw what you see!

    Wednesday, June 1, 2011

    Call for Artist - Fantasy Art Contest International

    Fantasy Art Contest International

    MyArtContest is pleased to announce a call for Fantasy Art. The theme is open to interpretation.

    Cost: $25 for 2 entries

    Juror: Carl Baratta

    Painting and Drawing Faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
    BFA, 1999, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia
    MFA, 2005, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    Charity: TBD

    Prizes: Cash and magazine features

    To enter, visit: www.MyArtContest.com

    Deadline: 07-31-2011
    MyArtContest
    Garden Grove, CA

    Contact: MyArtContest
    email: myartcontest@gmail.com
    Website: http://myartcontest.com/

    New York: Finger Paintings by Jorge Colombo

    Jorge Colombo is a Portuguese-born illustrator, designer, and photographer. He has lived in the USA for more than twenty years and he has been depicting American urban landscape ever since.

    So, if you admire the Big Apple, he has some beautiful illustrations of New York that are being published in hardcover on October 5, 2011. These illustrations were finger painted on location, on his iphone. This book presents one hundred of his best pieces in full colour, accompanied by his recollections and comentaries about each location.

    Google him and check out some of his work. He's brilliant! I pre-ordered the book over at Amazon. Don't miss out!

    Tuesday, May 31, 2011

    Brad Cooper Presents Almost Breathing - Custom Cardboard Cutouts The Way You Want Them!

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    Think about it, it seems like everyone is an amateur photographer these days – and most of us have gone on to become desktop publishers due to the easy to use photo editing software on the market today. It’s never been easier to print pictures, create photo collages, and make personalized gifts such as calendars and photo greeting cards on the computer and now it’s never been easier to take your love for your family, friends, a favorite celebrity, party planning, and photography to a whole new level!

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    Sunday, May 29, 2011

    Learning to Draw

    I think anybody can draw. It's just a matter of seeing the world differently. You need to look at the world in terms of lines, shapes, colors and the way they relate to each other.

    Everyone has two modes of thinking: Your left side which is logical, analytical, objective and rational. Your right side which is random, intuitive, creative and subjective. As we develop, one side will be dominate and we will have characteristics and areas of interest in correlation to that mode of thinking.

    But for those of you who have a dominate left side and still want to draw, I believe you can. Remember when you were young and the fun you had drawing. It didn't matter that what you drew didn't actually look like what you were seeing, but you knew what or who it represented and that's what mattered. Yes, as we get older we want to be more exacting, but that is what exercises are for.

    Here are some of the exercises I completed over at Drawspace:

    Drawing with Spaces -

    Faces and a Vase -

    Seeing Values -

    Remember when your doing exercises try to suppress your logical mode and begin drawing what you see and what you feel. And don't skip exercises because they don't look appealing to you. We want to have fun in everything we do.

    I, also, realize we don't always have access to the internet and therefore Drawspace exercises. So, here are a few books I recommend for the beginner that you can take with you anywhere.

    Craft Tools & Supplies for Beginners

    Have you been bitten by the creative bug? Well, if you have you could go crazy filling your cupboads or closets with supplies. Believe me, I speak from experience. But you could make do with the supplies listed below. Even the most advanced crafters use them regularly.

    Apron or Large Shirt
    Old Sheet(s)
    Soft Pencils
    Eraser
    Pencil Sharpener
    Fountain Pens or Dip Pens for decorative writing
    Colored Pencils

    Crayons
    Markers
    Chalk
    Watercolors
    Tempera Paints
    Acrylic Paint
    Paint Brushes
    Craft Paper - Different Types - White, Bright Colored, Pastels
    Tissue Paper
    Cardboard or Empty Boxes
    Magazines
    Egg Cartons
    Milk Cartons
    Clean Cans and Jars
    Netting from Produce Bags
    Bubble Wrap
    Packing Peanuts
    Styrofoam Trays
    Newspaper
    Tracing Paper
    Gold/Silver Foil - or use Tin Foil for embossing projects
    Tagboard
    Wax Paper
    Coffee Filters
    Clear Contact Paper
    Freezer Paper
    Roll White Paper
    Felt
    Yarn
    Fabric Scraps
    Thread
    Embroidery Floss
    Muslin
    Needles
    Air Dry Clay
    Chenille Stems
    Toothpicks
    Scrap Wood
    Craft Foam
    Craft Sticks or Popsicle Sticks
    Wood Shapes
    Polymer Clay
    Craft Clay
    Masking Tape
    Glue Sticks
    Strong Glue
    Tacky Glue
    Mod Podge
    Liquid Starch
    Fabric Glue
    Wood Glue
    Scissors - Optional - Zig-Zag Pinking Shears or Pattern Shears
    Short Ruler, Long Ruler or Triangle Ruler
    Bits and Pieces - Washers, Press Studs, Sequins, Paper Fasteners, Ribbon, Twine, Pony Beads, Wood Beads, Glass Beads, Fishing Line
    Straws
    Wiggle Eyes
    Glitter
    Pom Poms
    Feathers
    Craft Knife - when cutting you might want to put some old magazines underneath.
    Self Healing Cutting Mat - this is great for getting everything straight, well spaced and precision cutting.
    Toothbrush - for texture and paint effects
    Stamp Pads
    Rubber Stamps
    Brayer
    Sponges - for texture and paint effects
    Craft Paper Punches - art motives like star, flower, circle, etc.
    Metal Cookie Cutters
    Facial Tissues & Cotton Buds

    Now that your cupboards are overflowing, it's time to surf that web and find all those crafts you been longing to do.