The Illustrated Face

We look and feel our faces everyday. We are fully in our faces, our face is how we express ourselves.  As the face is such a beautiful and wonderful thing we thought it would be great to share different styles and techniques to building your own illustrated face.

A few weeks back we were sitting with our 13 year old brother introducing him to art – for a while he was really embarrassed to draw anything, especially a face. The reason why he was so embarrassed was because ‘it didn't look real.’

As we all know there are some seriously amazing artists, especially when it comes to portraiture. As an artist you may be able to produce a realistic drawing which represents every shade, tone, shape and size perfectly to the model you are drawing. Or you may not. You may interpret your model with an outrageously long nose or big, bulging eyes.   Whatever kind artist you are, you should stand up tall and be extremely proud of your talents. Art is about how you interpret something so get your pencil in hand and express yourself, because its a wonderful thing !

As we sat with our brother we had to teach him that just because the nose on the paper doesn’t look like a real nose it doesn’t mean it’s not a good form of expression. From the moment your pencil makes the initial hit on paper its real. Take Picasso for example, the faces he created were questioned upon because they didn’t resemble what we all know so well as the face – but haven’t we learnt from Picasso that a face with an eye on its chin and chin on its eye can represent exactly what you want it to. Its EXPRESSION.

You will see below that we have broken down the face into sections to show you how you can create your illustrated face.  Enjoy and remember to have fun with it!

First things first map out the face ! You will find it a lot easier if you draw a faint outline of the face. This is your base and you can fill in cheek details and the finer shape later on. Its best to start with this base so your face looks more in proportion. We also always draw a line down the centre and another line going across the middle (see the below picture) this is a guideline for where to draw the eyes.

TIP: You would also place the ears on the outside of the face and in line with the centre line that you drew across the face.

The Illustrated Eye

The eye is such a cool thing to draw because it really sets the mood for the rest of your face. We like to play around with pure black eyes; this gives your face a real edge. Remember that your eyes don’t have to be oval, they can be triangular or heart shaped. In fact you don’t even need to have any eyes when it comes to illustration, you have the freedom to build your character exactly how you want!

So give these beauties a try until you mould them into your own signature style!

TIP: Don’t concentrate too much on eye lashes and what eye colour looks good – focus on your shapes and symmetry. You can fill in the finer details later.

The Illustrated Eyebrow

Our darling eyebrows.  We think drawing eyebrows are super fun (maybe because it’s like using an eyebrow pencil!) We would advise to draw your eye first, this will give you a natural guideline to drawing your brow. Remember that you could simply use 1 line for your brow, or you could get right in there with short dashes to create a full ‘model’ brow.

TIP: Remember that eyebrows are sister and not twins – they do not have to be identical to look fabulous!

The Illustrated Nose

So…the nose. Our little breathing buddy, our little tricky breathing buddy that can be a struggle to draw! It can be a scary thing drawing a nose, maybe because you can be insulted if it’s drawn wrong. You have to really experiment with the nose – we sometimes draw ours upside down. This creates the idea that  you’re not really drawing what you think you are. Remember when drawing a nose you aren’t actually restricted too much – you can play around with the angles, showing of the nostril or straight and bumpy bridges!

TIP: Practice drawing the same nose for a few of your drawings – get familiar with a style and adapt later on!

The Illustrated Mouth

Pucker up guys; it’s time for the mouth. The luscious lips are one of our favourites, they’re so fun to draw and paint! With a range of different sizes and shapes (a bit like the nose) you can really have your fun with them.  Try playing around with the angles on the top lip, imagine drawing some mountains in the distance – you’d be surprised with how much of a difference the top lip makes.

TIP: Don’t rush yourself with adding teeth until you feel really confident in your signature lips – teeth can be really tricky to get right and it takes time to practice open mouth drawings.