100 Faces – #100 Sunrise

And so I come to the end!  I have finished all 100 ink and watercolour illustrations of faces.  I admit I am relieved.  It has been very challenging to make time enough to keep up with this series and (confession) it started to feel like a chore at least a score of drawings ago.

Things I have learned from this series – aside from improving my ability with constructing faces, even just a smidge – are that I very much enjoy working in series because it provides me with focus and extra drive but that setting myself the goal of a specific number, especially 100, now feels like too much pressure; I also like working with minimal palettes, maybe not always monochrome but close – though I do also like explosions of colour from time to time; and I like to keep faces pretty monochrome with a little splash of colour – and not just because I struggle with mixing decent flesh tones.

For this final illustration, I decided to echo one of my favourite drawings from the series, Sunset, so I dubbed this one Sunrise and used the same colour scheme and feel.

Thank you, dear readers, for following along with me as I worked through this series and for encouraging me every step of the way.  I truly do appreciate all the cheerleading and support.  Thank you!

PS This blog might go into stasis for a bit while I take a break from working on a series project and work to make my schedule offer me more art time.  In the meanwhile, I will continue to post about my mixed media experiments and art journaling over on my personal blog, A Pict in PA.

100 Faces – #99 Gertrude

This is another experiment in the drama of red and black.  One of my kids watched me adding the final details to this illustration and asked if she was an evil ghost lady.  Ha ha! It wasn’t my intention for this piece to have that feel to it but I am happy to go with it.  Maybe a vengeful spirit figuring out her dastardly plan.

 

100 Faces – #98 Beehive

This illustration ended up with a far more severe and cold facial expression than I had in my mind’s eye.  Maybe it is the weight of that beehive hairstyle on top of her head.

100 Faces – #97 Waterfall

My thinking behind this drawing was using the hair and its block of colour to create an almost asymmetric composition with a column of colour in the centre.  I am not sure why my brain wanted me to try that but try it I did.  I like the range of blues in this piece though you can detect my impatience at work since I did not wait for one layer to dry enough before adding another pigment so they bled together more than I intended.  I think maybe I am rushing now that I am so near the end of this series of 100.

100 Faces – #96 Myrtle

It’s the Final Countdown!  (You can thank me later for the earworm.)

Anyway, 96 drawings in and I am still doing battle with green, trying to make it work for me.  Partly it is because I struggle with mixing greens – they either end up too lime-apple or too darkly, dankly mossy – and partly it is because I just cannot make the greens work within the composition or against the flesh tones.  I will probably keep working at it.

100 Faces – #95 Lottie

I thought it was time to practice drawing a younger face again, more specifically a girl in her early teens.  I think I achieved my aim.  I also like the way the shadows worked out in this illustration.  I also like the mixture of puddle blooms and salt sprinkles in the dark pink hair.

100 Faces – #94 Smile

I needed a break from teeth so I chose to draw a close-mouthed smile.  I like the shadows on the cheeks.  I do not, however, like that nose. The disc is back to try and save the day.

100 Faces – #93 Daphne

There are (at least) two areas of drawing faces that I really find challenging and need a great deal more practice with and those are depicting curly hair and drawing teeth.  This illustration, therefore, incorporates both challenges.  The teeth …. well, I am not sure these represent much progress.  The hair though was an attempt at a different approach, using layering of different colours of watercolour to imply curly hair without actually drawing or painting any curls.  Instead of linework, I just let the pigments meet and blend to suggest the texture.  While not completely successful, I think this may represent a step in the right direction.

100 Faces – #92 Ingrid

It was scores of illustrations ago that I last incorporated some watercolour dribble so I thought I would play around with that in this, my 92nd drawing in the series.  It represents more practice with parted lips revealing teeth.  Why are teeth so very difficult to draw?  That is something I definitely need to focus on.

100 Faces – #91 Anxious

This is my attempt at an anxious facial expression.  As a control freak, I am often anxious.  I, however, am poker-faced anxious.  My face rarely communicates the fact that inside I am a tempest of nervous energy.  I think maybe the expression in my illustration is perhaps more wary than it is anxious but it’s in the ballpark of the right emotional state at least.  Now that I am in the 90s, I am on the home stretch for this particular challenge.  Only 9 more to go!