29 FACES DAY 17

'Aidianna' - A widely travelled lady
Paper collage on card, with paper strips for 'hair' only attached around the face.

Cher was on the BBC TV News a week or so ago promoting her latest tour.  I absolutely adore Cher in films such as Tea with Mussolini, and Mermaids, two of our favourite DVDS.  Such an individual face.

The programme showed a photograph of her with a huge newspaper wig she wore in one of her previous tours.  It looked fantastic, and it inspired me to use the idea as a basis for  one of my 29 FACES.

I used pages containing city maps from an old road map book of Europe.  I cut small odd-shaped pieces for the face and stuck them on a piece of card quite at random.  The eyes and lips are shapes I cut from coloured paper and collaged on.

For the 'hair' I cut dozens and dozens of strips, which I stuck around the face just a little glue on a folded-back edge, so that the 'hair' would flop around and position itself as it wished.  The finished piece is 17 inches high by 21 inches wide.

On Sunday, when I finished it and took the photograph, the sky was almost black and it poured with rain all day, so I was amazed when I was able to take this reasonably clear photograph.  The artwork is laid out on a black towel to get a good contrast.

Here's where she started.  As soon as I saw Cher's newspaper wig I knew I wanted to create something along those lines for 29 Faces. I grabbed my 'rough' sketchbook, which is always beside me and quickly made a rough sketch to remind me to do it.  It's always better for me to get an idea down on paper right away, otherwise it gets lost in all the other ideas that are always spinning around in my head.

This close-up of the face shows the various pieces of map a little more clearly.  I like the way the randomly placed pieces of map 'draw' lines across the face, especially the two that are a little like eyebrows above the eyes.  Serendipity.

To finish off I took the image into Photoshop and applied the 'Stylize - Find Edges' filter.  It produced this striking effect, and the effect of the filter on the black towel has produced interesting texture.

I think I like this version of Aidianna even more than the original.

29 FACES DAY 16

Mindy - Jez

Mindy here is the result of a a silly careless accident I made with the original drawing, all my own fault as usual.  You can see below the stage just after the careless move that meant I couldn't use the original drawing.

For the original drawing - before I spoilt it - I used Indian ink and a piece of bamboo sharpened to give a 'point' about 4 mm wide as the drawing implement.  I was able to make the line thicker or thinner depending on how I held the bamboo.

When I decided it was ready to photograph the original drawing, I noticed a couple of specks of some kind just above the top of the hair, where the ink line was thick.  I brushed them away ..... and yes, that part of the drawing was not completely dry and I smudged it badly.

To try to make it usable I widened the line of hair all around the head with a Pitt Artists Brush Pen, as shown above.  But then I felt it made the image worse, not better.  So I decide to paint the hair black all over.  OK, it was time to play with Photoshop to do that, I wasn't about to get the black ink out again.

Here's Mindy again when I finished playing on Photoshop:

After pouring black to fill the outline of the hair I wasn't too keen on the extreme dominance of the black.  It needed a bright background to complement it.  I drew the white mosaic-type shapes and filled them with various colours.  Just the amber eyes and the lips to colour in, and voila! I considered it finished.

I like it now, a combination of drawing and digital, and a spoilt drawing saved.  Mindy comes to life.

                                           I felt it was worth the struggle.        What do you think?

Linking to 29 FACES

29 FACES DAY 15

Hubert Gizmachi

Do you remember Professor Petrov Gizmachi from yesterday's Day 14 painting for 29 FACES?  Let me introduce you to his son, Hubert, for Day 15.  A true chip off the old block, both in appearance and phenomenal intelligence.

At the age of 16 Hubert is a first-year student at one of England's top universities, and has been picked for their team competing on television's 'University Challenge' programme.

Yesterday's Scribbler face of Professor Petrov inspired me to paint a portrait of his son.  I'm challenging myself to create something in a different way every day, and although I've used the methods separately before, I've never combined them with this approach.

I painted a watercolour background on watercolour paper, sloshing different colours of paint onto the wet page fairly randomly and adding splashes of colour with a toothbrush.  Luckily the orangey paint fitted nicely for where I wanted to paint the hair.  Of course I forgot to take a photograph of the background before I did the next stage.

I painted the outline of his face, his eyes and his lips with acrylic paint, and scrubbed the remnants of mixed paint left on my palette onto the face and hair quite randomly.  The spectacles were painted with a black Pitt Artist's brush pen.  I wanted to leave the rest of the face 'empty' so that the original messy background showed through, as you can see in this close-up.

Here he is again in all his intelligent glory, looking a bit miffed because he would have liked a more traditional portrait.  But I love him.

29 FACES DAY 14

Petrov Gizmachi, Professor of Arcane Knowledge

The Professor was created with Scribbler, one of my favourite apps on my I-Pad.  It's an interesting drawing app and fun to play with, especially in hospital waiting rooms.

Scribbler is very simple in concept.  You draw something - I always seem to draw faces.  You then select the amount of scribble you want, press the scribble button and, as the scribbling automatically and randomly moves around the picture, you choose the point at which you want to consider it complete. It only takes a little practise to achieve a result one likes.

I chose not to have too much scribbling on this.  It went a little further than I wanted because I was waiting for the eye on the right to appear but it wasn't going to happen.

It's random, but the end result often provides a sketch that gives me inspiration for a drawing.  And Petrov looks a learned but wise and approachable Professor, I like him.

29 FACES DAY 13

Priscilla - Pretty in Pink
Watercolour on watercolour paper
Jez

The scanning process has darkened and strengthened the colours of my Priscilla painting, especially on the shadow and cheeks, and even in Photoshop I couldn't lighten it.

Never mind, I'm not trying to create masterpieces (as if I could!), just enjoying the challenge of creating a new painting for each day in a different medium and with a different approach.

In spite of the problem I like her, she somehow has a very 1930s look with the tilt of the hat over one eye, and I do like painting ladies wearing a hat.

Here are the other six 29 FACES I created this week:

Also linking to Paper Saturdays

29 FACES DAY 12

Sweet Rita, no one could be sweeter - Jez

I think it's time for a girlie picture again.  Here's Rita, her hair (but not her face) reminds me of Rita Hayworth, the film actress of my youth - much before your time dear youngsters.  Though with all the re-runs of old movies on television she may still be well-known.

I used coloured pencils and then digitally collaged her onto part of a photograph of a huge wooden door that I took in Liverpool a couple of months ago.  I thought the rich colours went well together.

I thought I would experiment with a few digital changes, just for fun.  I liked the pointillist effect of this one.

This was the only colour change that gave a really different effect, particularly with the fiery background.

And I was pleased with the effect of this filter, where the hair looked a little like knitting.

There are so many wonderful blogs that I visit for this great challenge

and it is so sad that when I type in a long comment

I find I am not able to publish it because I don't

have Twitter, or Google +, etc

so it just gets lost and I can't express my admiration to the artist.

I don't understand why the two Google things are separated with an iron wall!

29 FACES DAY 11

Sam Sea Dog

Sam threw himself onto the paper with gusto in a very short time.  He was drawn with black Indian ink.  I went out into the garden and broke off a rather dead twig about 12 inches long to use as my drawing implement.

This is the twig, which I held at arms length to draw the old fellow, using the end at the right which you can see has a black tip from the ink.  I twisted it round to get a finer or thicker line, and by chance one of the angles produced the double line which you can see was quite good for the beard.

 Great fun.

29 FACES DAY 10

Two related drawings here today for the 29 FACES challenge.

"I don't know you"
Graphite pencil drawing by Jez

Last year a dear friend of 55 years died of cancer, and sadly she had also suffered from Altzheimer's Disease for several years.  The drawing shown above was inspired by a photograph in the newspaper of a quite different lady suffering from the same terrible disease.  Drawing it helped me to understand, and to be patient when I sat with her some days while her husband had to go to hospital for his own health problems.

This was my first close encounter with Altzheimers, and I was very affected by it.  Annie (not her name, but I shall call her that) and I were next door neighbours for a few years, and though we had very little money we would find ways to have little trips and adventures with our babies and have fun.  The disease wipes out the past so cruelly, all the memories, all recognition of friends and family, and all ability to connect with others.

My vision of the encroaching effects of the disease
Jez

I hope I will be forgiven for including these two drawings that were made a few months ago, but this second drawing above is my way of trying to express what happens to the person, a process so difficult for them and for their families.

I've tried to symbolise the way it progresses - a few plant tendrils grow across the image of the person, then a few leaves, and then the foliage starts to cover the face, and eventually the person inside the well-known body is covered with so many leaves that the person we knew is not really there at all.

I hope I will be forgiven for including these two drawings that were made a few months ago, but I'm a bit stuck for time this week, with two separate days in hospital for cancer check-up procedures and then a day at least to recover.

Then back to normal tomorrow with the silly, cheerful faces I've managed to create in advance and pre-scheduled for the challenge.

29 FACES DAY 9

"Mimi"
Oil Pastel on watercolour paper

I call her Mimi, but actually I should have spelt it Me - Me.  Yes folks, this is a jokey version of me!  I took a photograph of myself while making a very silly face in the mirror - 'gurning'.  I don't know whether the word 'gurning' is known outside of the UK, but Chambers dictionary defines the term 'gurning' as meaning making a grotesque face.  There are even gurning competitions in this country.

And no, I am NOT going to show you my actual photograph.

Dev tactfully (or for his own bodily safety) insisted it didn't look a bit like me, and that I was much prettier.  He said it makes him laugh.  Well, it's on the easel, and it makes me laugh too every time I pass it.

29 FACES DAY 8

'Dora' - by Jez

For today's  29 FACES I drew Dora looking as if she had been drawn on a computer, when in fact I used a Pitt Artists pen to draw on white card.

It's always interesting to consider how minimal the drawing of a face can be to make it recognisable as a face.  This mock-digital approach provided just the essential information, though looking at it now, I realise that I could even have left out the line representing the bridge of the nose.

I found Dora in a magazine photo, and liked her 'over the shoulder' look.  The collaged numbers were from an illustration in an old Vanity Fair magazine.

Here's what she looked like at the drawing and collage stage before I scanned her into Photoshop:

In Photoshop I used the colour picker to select the buff colour from the numbers collage to use for the background so that the image hung together, and I'm pleased with the result.

I know it's only the end of the first week, but so far I have managed to stick to my theme of using a different style or technique for each day.  I don't know how long I'll be able to keep that up, but I'm trying, and really finding it fun.

29 FACES DAY 7

'Manfred the Machine Man' - Jez
Machine stitching on white card

My personal challenge today for 29 FACES was to create a recognisable face using my brand new baby sewing machine.  I wanted to try to 'draw' a stitched face with no pre-drawing, and with a single sewing line from start to finish.

Hopefully you should be able to see that there are no pre-drawn lines.  I used green thread because that's what was threaded into the machine, and since it is an absolute pain to thread-up I wasn't going to change it.  At this point you can see the thread of my starting and finishing points, the eye and the moustache.

Here's the completed Manfred, with the loose threads showing the starting position at the hair-line, going round the face, down and up the neck, up the jaw, round the hair and back to the ear.  Phew!!  At that point I tied them and cut them off.

I used yellow thread in the bobbin which means the image on the reverse side is 'drawn' in yellow.  Inspired by Morag's use of wax crayons in her September 2nd painting, I dug out some old jumbo crayons and scribbled colour in.  Handsome fellow, isn't he!  So, two for the price of one today.

Here's my little baby Janome machine.  I had only used it a couple of times before trying this face.  You can see how small it is from the mug of pencils - about 9 inches by 11 inches.  It does five sizes of straight stitch and five sizes of zig-zag, and cost the princely sum of £58.  Apart from the terrible problem of threading the needle, I have no complaints about it.  I have an all-singing,  all-dancing reliable old Pfaff machine, but sadly it is too heavy for either Dev or me to lift out of the cupboard onto a table.

So I love my new baby, it means I can sew again, even though it's at a basic level.  I've never been without a sewing machine since my mum taught me to use her treadle machine to make postage stamps with paper and no thread in the needle so that we could play post offices with metal buttons for sixpences when I was about 5 or 6.

29 FACES DAY 6

'Olga' by Jez
Derwent Inktense Watercolour Pencils

For the  29 FACES challenge, which is to create 29 faces in the 28 days of September, I set myself a personal theme for the month.  In creating my faces I shall be focussing on 'variety', trying something different all the time, experimenting and trying to be happy with an experiment even if it doesn't turn out too well.

Today's face is inspired by a photograph of a Ukranian woman that appealed to me in an old National Geographic magazine.  I'm not very good at working in a loose style, but I loved the jolly face of this lady and wanted to make today's personal challenge a loose drawing and painting.  Quite happy with the result, and I named her Olga - I don't really know any Ukranian names.

Here are the faces I created for Days 1 to 5:

Also linking to Paint Party Friday and Paper Saturdays

29 FACES DAY 5

Princess Andorrea from the planet Zolfan
by Jez

I spent a few hours yesterday in the waiting room of the hospital where Dev was going to have an eye operation.  Thankfully it was a private clinic with deep squashy settees and side tables to take the coffee and biscuits that were brought to me twice.

Because I knew I would be waiting so long I took my I-pad with me so that I could draw and 'paint'.  While I waited with Dev for him to be called, I picked up the Daily Telegraph Business Section that lay on the table beside me.

And this is what I saw:

This was the face of a girl in a larger picture illustrating an article - I never even looked to see what the article was about, I was just entranced with the face which inspired me to paint Princess Andorrea.  The time simply flew by, and I even enjoyed the wait -  and the result which gave me a face for today's 29 FACES

I used the Brushes app, which is my favourite even though it's very simple compared with other painting apps.  That's why I like it because it is intuitive and seems to work the way I like to draw.

At home I added the frame and the message in Zolfan symbols in Photoshop.

29 FACES DAY 4

Percy ..... and er ..... Percy
by Jez

This is one of my coffee-break scribble doodles.  I often doodle with my eyes closed, not thinking about the details of a sketch, just saying in my mind 'face, face'.  When I look at it I can invariably see a face shape somewhere in the scribble. 

Yes, nutty I know, but try it yourself.  It works for me, baby.  In fact what I saw today were two faces, most unexpected.  Picasso is probably grinding his teeth with envy up there in heaven. 

I didn't think of scanning the sketch until I had inked in the outlines of the lines I wanted to use, drawing almost exactly on the original lines. 

I scanned the image at that point.  If you look carefully you can faintly see the unused original lines which I  erased so that I could colour the face with watercolour.  I added a red surround using Inktense Watercolour Pencil to get a varied effect, and a frame put round on Photoshop.

Just right for Day 4 of 29 FACES.  I love Percy ... and er ... Percy, and would go on a date with them any time.   

29 FACES DAY 3

I've been too scared to ask him what his name is
by Jez

I made this background out of cut-up pieces of newspaper as a background of the artwork for my Artful Readers Club August review and artwork, and threw it in the waste-paper basket when I had finished.

Yesterday my eye caught sight of the discarded page sitting in the bin, not even folded or creased, and I thought 'that should be an interesting background for a face'.

I picked up a Pitt brush pen and drew this scary face without thinking what I was going to do.  What dark recesses of my mind did that chappie emerge from!  Well, not very nice, but I'd definitely say interesting.  Frame added on Photoshop.

 Still it's certainly a different approach for the 29 FACES challenge, so I'm pleased with it, even if I don't want to go on a date with him.

29 FACES DAY 2

'Another Fine Mess!' - Jez

I hope you can recognise my second face for 29 faces.  It's not quite Olly, but nearish, so I'm happy with it.  I decided to go with a black surround instead of colouring his suit and hat black.  I didn't intend it to look as though he's got a big black bear standing behind him, but perhaps he was having a bad day.

29 FACES

'Elvira' - Jez

Here's my first face for the 29 faces challenge for September over at Ayala Art.  This is my first time with 29 Faces, and given the number of hospital visits this month it certainly is going to be a challenge to keep up.

I've set myself a THEME for the month, and it's 'variety', trying something different all the time, experimenting and trying to be happy with the experiment even if I'm not too happy with it.

But I think I'm going to enjoy it!