My first attempt at painting faces from a sketch…

I've always admired journal artists who paint faces–Paulette Insall, Katie Kendrick, DJ Pettit, among others–but I've never tried doing it. Too intimidated, even though I love to paint over photographs. For me, painting on a photograph is easy because the photograph tells you where to put your colors.

Recently I signed up for an online class (which is SOOO unlike me…I rarely take classes). It's "Of Towers and Turrets" by Sharon Tomlinson and Deryn Mentock. Both these artists were new to me & I am so glad I discovered them…their work is very inspiring! Part of the class requires small faces painted onto the collaged towers…and I thought, no way am I doing that. But then I watched the video and realized that painting a face isn't a whole lot different than painting over a photograph…so I tried it. My results are amateurish, I realize that, but my faces turned out much better than I expected. 

Then I tried a large face…just started painting it right over a background that I'd done previously. It's far from perfect, but I had fun…and hope to keep practicing.

I'll share the pages when they're done…I'm still waiting for my eraser-carving supplies from Dick Blick.