Vogue Girl

Hi, Friends!  So after almost two and a half years, I have decided to resurrect my blog as an opportunity to share my artwork and craft with you again.  I recently spent a wonderful weekend in Huntersville, NC at Donna Downey's Inspired Artist Workshop.  I met a bunch of wonderful, creative people and got to play with lots of new artsy stuff and get messy at Donna's studio.  Here is one of the techniques she taught us about how to draw/paint faces.

First, find a face that you want to draw.  Mine is an advertisement from French Vogue magazine:

Next, prepare your surface.  I used a manilla folder, and I gessoed over the first image that I traced there--ironically it was another face with fingers in the mouth too.  I just like this one better.  So, yes, you need to prep your surface with gesso or another primer suitable for your medium.  Then use a piece of graphite paper (like carbon paper, but leaves pencil-like marks) between your surface and your image.  Trace the outlines of your image--I used the hard end of a small paintbrush to just get her outline on my surface.  Here is what it looks like now:

Really ugly, right?  Amazing what make-up can do!  lol.  Now, all you have to do is color.  I used acrylic paint for everything.  It's clear that I do not know how to blend color yet, but I kind of like her chunky.  What do you think?

Comments are appreciated!  Have a creative day--get messy!