Drawing Expressions

Studying and drawing facial expressions is one of my artistic interests. You can study expressions by drawing from life, although extreme expressions (anguish, severe pain, and so on) can't really be posed. Surprisingly, reference materials dealing with expression aren't that common, but one of the most useful books about faces is by Gary Faigin, The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression, which I posted about a few years back. In that book, the author discusses the structure of the head and facial muscles in detail, then delves into what makes each of the six "standard" human facial expressions tell us the mood of the sitter. For anyone interested in making images of human beings, a thorough understanding of the information in Mr. Faigin's book is fundamental.

Since my first reading of Mr. Faigin's book I've gone back several times to refresh my visual memory and to seek out nuances for more practice. For me such practice drawings are a daily ritual, a way to practice drawing, seek out new information, and study heads and faces for possible oil paintings. So today I'm posting a few recent drawings of facial expressions.

"Louis," charcoal on laid paper

This is a charcoal sketch of Louis Armstrong, the jazz superstar of the 20th century. It's about 16x20 on laid paper. The idea was to show the serious face of Mr. Armstrong, who was so often shown laughing, smiling, mugging for the camera, or otherwise happy. It made not sense to me to think that he was always happy. My hunch is he was a considerably more serious person than the character he played while on the bandstand.

Drawing faces gives me an opportunity to meditate on the person being rendered--what is the person thinking? what does their expression say? what is unique about her or him? The mind explores all sorts of ideas while the hands move busily in wordless meditation. 

"Anna Scher," digital

This digital drawing is Anna Scher, whose expression of pure joyfulness captured my interest one morning a year or so ago. She founded the Anna Scher Theatre fifty years ago as an after school drama club. From that beginning, her work with students grew and expanded so that she has become something of an icon in the UK. She is well known for her upbeat, positive attitude and for promoting love, peace and understanding through both learning and professionalism. In photos she is often seen laughing. This particular open-mouthed smile was a challenge.

Anguish, severe emotional pain and distress, is an evanescent facial expression associated with grief, injury, death, and all manner of negative circumstances. This particular digital drawing arose as a study that came out of a news report of the death of a young man. His brother was shown grieving for the loss of his brother and for the senseless brutality of war.

This digital painting of a woman in a war zone also came from a news item online. In the news she was shown in a head scarf, her eyes tear-filled, as she discussed how much of her family is now dead or missing because of rebellion, conflict, bombing and shooting in her home country. Her expression seemed to me to be not only sad but hopeless as she mourned for her family and her country.

Drawing expressions from life is one way to advance skills in rendering heads and faces, but sometimes those looks are fleeting and nearly impossible to capture. Although life studies are one standard for rendering the human, using online sources--especially news feeds--can provide considerably more material for daily study.




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Previously
Favorite Art Books Part 7
Expressive Faces
More on Expressions