Wednesday, September 11, 2013

29 Faces in September # 16 and #17

So here we are, moving right along.  #16 and #17 are both very small, 3" X 5".  I did the drawings for them at school (in between grading notebooks), and they were both from pictures in the newspaper.  The sports pages are often good for extreme sorts of emotions.  A bunch of people wondered why I never did happy people in these prints, and really, there was no special reason.  But I looked for happy folks this time.

A number of people have been commenting on the expressions on these faces, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about that:  I'm always looking for interesting expressions--or rather, expressions that make interesting shapes in the face.  For these prints where it's just black and white, I'm looking for dramatic lighting--something that divides the face into dark and light.  Even if it's not as extreme as how it turns out in the prints, if you squint, it makes it gets rid of the midtones, and simplifies it for you.

But it's interesting.  Now that I'm getting this down (though they all need some cleaning up), I'm starting to think of other ways that I might cut for different effects....

7 comments:

  1. Very good position! It is fine to try different positions and face expressions, too. The laugh is wonderful :-D

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  2. it's so refreshing to see your 29faces, different from the usual painted ones. Beautiful! Btw, i replied to your comment in my blog. Thanks for your visit.

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  3. Nice to see a jolly face in your faces! I love them all, regardless of smiles. I like craggly faces with lots of expression when I draw too :)

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  4. Such a great and unique offering for our challenge. Good work.

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  5. You have many fantastic faces, I like them very much!

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  6. Two more interesting faces, the top one is particularly effective. I love the strong contrast between the intense black and the white paper. I was also interested in what you wrote about the expressions and the lighting. Thank you.

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