Facial expressions

Below are a variation of different styles and examples of different facial expressions. Along with body language, I feel this is one of the main ways we can physically convey emotion.  It was fun to try to capture different emotions and also a useful excersise to practise with line and movements of the face. I think this excersise also helped me to really explore and capture personality when drawing people. This is something I have struggled with. Sometimes drawing people can be difficult and al lot of my drawings will look generic, instead of like individual people with individual personalities. This practise with movement and the different shapes faces can make has definitely helped me capture different personalities and physical traits. Which is an unexpected bonus.

I started off by drawing some generic faces, focusing on the different aspects of each face that change the overall expression.

As a warm up to this excersise I told my boyfriend to pull various funny faces so I could draw them. It was a fun start and actually really useful in helping me to understand the physical elements and movements of faces. I'd usually worry too much about proportion and lining everything up. Whereas drawing funny faces gave me more freedom to explore what works and what doesn't.

I then did the same with my own face in order to practise masculine and feminine features.

I also tried to draw some quick faces. For most of these I haven't used visual reference in order to see where I'm at with my knowledge of facial features.

This is a page from my sketchbook. There where some interesting faces on Pinterest that I found whilst browesing for research and I drew a few of them in styles I felt suited the emotion. I actually really enjoy capturing emotion in close up photos. I think it's because there is always someone out there who will recognise that emotion and the work will appeal to them. It seems like quite a personal thing to draw someones face up close when they are expressing an emotion physically. I think it is so powerful as it is something we would usually see so close up. People tend to turn away or keep their emotions in their heads to some extent. So I think it is a meanigful thing that evokes a lot of empathy.

This is also a page from my sketchbook with the same aim as the page above. It's surprising how much faces can vary. Not only by ages and gender but also by the expression that is being made.

I've started to really enjoy drawijng older people. I think there is a lot of life in their faces and for a drawing it makes it easy to convey so much emotion and life. Every line and feature is made more interesting by the expression they are making too.

I tend to not use a wide variety of media, but even just using a biro instead of fine liner pen for this drawing made a diffeence. I found it easier to draw in but prefer the result of using a fine liner or dip pen and ink. The edges are thicker with biro and it's nice for softer tones but over all I prefer the darker line you get with ink or fineliner.

Seeing as I was experimenting a lot with older faces I decided to draw a really young face too. This was also a commision for a friend.  It is interesting to compare the techniques used to convey an emotion with an older face and a younger face. Despite all the extra elements I actually find it easier to draw old faces. The older faces are so unique. It's a bit more of a struggle to capture the individuality of a very young child. But a good challenge in focusing on the finer detail and individual aspects.