How do you put beauty into a face ?

BelowPar

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Hi all , I am presently practising faces and I am struggling with a few things ,such as noses , lips . But my main concern is nothing I do seems to have any beauty . All my efforts thus far have looked like horror charactors .

What do I need to do too add beauty ?

beaut.jpg
 
Do a lot of practice drawing of the features separately. You can look on the Internet for references and even look on youtube for tutorials on drawing/painting the separate features and then just practice, practice, practice.
 
Do a lot of practice drawing of the features separately. You can look on the Internet for references and even look on youtube for tutorials on drawing/painting the separate features and then just practice, practice, practice.
Thank you for your reply ,I guess practice is the answer .
 
My way is to just not do portraits. :) Too difficult.

But good luck and don't get discouraged. I think for most artists their art is like a roller coaster with ups and downs. I know it is for me.

I would suggest finding an instructional video on Youtube. They've really helped me.
 
My way is to just not do portraits. :) Too difficult.

But good luck and don't get discouraged. I think for most artists their art is like a roller coaster with ups and downs. I know it is for me.

I would suggest finding an instructional video on Youtube. They've really helped me.
Thank you for the comment ! I have spent some time practising faces today on a scrap 5*6'' canvas but still haven't got the realism I hope to learn and acheive
practice.jpg
 
I really like that one! What is the beauty you are seeking anyway? Is it the traditional pin-up kind, or is it the portrayal of someone’s character - or your own?
 
I really like that one! What is the beauty you are seeking anyway? Is it the traditional pin-up kind, or is it the portrayal of someone’s character - or your own?
The beauty of an Angel rather than the look of a thug type beauty ! I wasn't tying to make the last face look beautiful lol .
 
Decided to finish off the last face and make a complete scene lol , think I'll call this , ''Not Just For Xmas''
otjust for xmas.jpg
 
I can see improvement. It's all in lights and shadows and if you are trying to achieve a likeness, sometimes the tiniest detail will make or break the portrait.
 
I can see improvement. It's all in lights and shadows and if you are trying to achieve a likeness, sometimes the tiniest detail will make or break the portrait.
I don't really compare my art to anything , I just take the brush and start to paint . I don't really draw anything out either although now and again I might mark out a straight edge or nostrils lol . That last pic came from a scrapped picture and using it as a test sheet , I saw the Dog in my spillage so painted it in . Thanks for the confidence boost , it is nice to know I am improving . I hope to get faces perfect soon . Still struggling with noses and lips , also finding it difficult to paint a female face , they keep turning into men for some reason .
 
Are we allowed to share websites? If so, "Thevirtualinstructor.com" might have some useful resources. They have some videos on drawing noses, eyes, etc. and some full portrait videos.

A lot of them are member only, but they do have some free ones. :)

Something else that might help that I used to do... Look up contouring for male/female faces. Most will be makeup guides, but you can find images with the different planes of the face highlighted or shadowed depending what features you might want to stand out. While there's artist guides for drawing the face that are similar, I found makeup contouring guides were sometimes handy to show me where I can put my shadows to help bring out the eyes, cheeks, etc.
 
Are we allowed to share websites? If so, "Thevirtualinstructor.com" might have some useful resources. They have some videos on drawing noses, eyes, etc. and some full portrait videos.

A lot of them are member only, but they do have some free ones. :)

Something else that might help that I used to do... Look up contouring for male/female faces. Most will be makeup guides, but you can find images with the different planes of the face highlighted or shadowed depending what features you might want to stand out. While there's artist guides for drawing the face that are similar, I found makeup contouring guides were sometimes handy to show me where I can put my shadows to help bring out the eyes, cheeks, etc.
Thanks for that , the information will be very useful !
 
A few points:

About Loomis': you can get his original books as PDF and use them. I think they are more useful than videos: stills remain still for longer.

As for "beauty"...

I'd say, start with rough shapes.

TL;DR

I am a man of my time, grew up with comics. In primary school we were taught to draw by copying line-drawing plates and I would pay lots of attention to detail. With time I started to get acceptable results. It was in secondary school that I first got bad grades in Art: my teacher complained I payed too much attention to detail and that I shouldn't. Surprising to say the least, I could get almost "perfect" reproductions. What she wanted was that instead of aiming for perfection from start, that I started from rough shapes and then worked on them to refine the shapes. I guess she saw what I didn't: uneven proportions in the details that precluded my advance.

I think we all tend to do the same: unconsciously we exaggerate what draws our attention and reduce what we deem less interesting. Not just in Art, but in every facet of life. And we do not realize it. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, one may argue for a personal style in Art along those rules and be successful, maybe even a smashing hit. See the Naifs for instance.

OK, so what do I mean? I think -but that's my experience, YMMV- that concentrating in detail too early is risky and a slower way. As with comics, it is more important to get the proportions right than the detail. I have always loved the elegant simplicity of high key portraits in Photography and one of my frustration is not having mastered them yet.

I would suggest you start with rough shapes, trying to get proportions right. Instead of copying or mimicking others' works, just draw ovals, circles, spheres, cubes, cones... and aim to get the overall proportions right. Observe yourself in the mirror (I'm not a fan of self-portrait, there are few angles you can look at yourself in a mirror), and mostly other people and try to notice the overall outline, forget the eyes, the mouth, the ears, the hair, the nose...

Once you get the overall oval, learn to place "markers" for eyes, nose and mouth. At this stage you will likely discover that just drawing the oval, and three lines (two for the eyes and one for the mouth) is already more than enough to get a beautiful face, much like in high-key pictures or in comics.

Then, and again I speak only for myself, YMMV, it will be the time to start adding more details: a couple of dots for the nostrils. A couple of dots for the pupils. And then you can start trying to "refine" your faces to add as much detail as you want.

Note the use of underlined italics in the word "draw" above: just do it with a pencil and eraser on paper until you get satisfied. Then that same drawing on a canvas may become the reference framework of your painting. And same as for shape detail, you may start with flat coloring (nothing wrong, as shown by Pop Art) and progressively add shadows.

A small pocket sketchbook and mechanical pocket pencil may become your best friends by allowing you to practice small and quickly at any time.

A second note, and again I speak only for myself, YMMV, about lines: aiming for perfect lines is difficult and often counterproductive: I find I can get better ovals/circles by working with smaller, discontinuous, overlapping lines. That is also the basis for a general rule: you do not need detail, our brain will fill in anything missing, what you need is to convey the general impression (of a line, a face, a tree) and let the brain fill in the gaps and do all the work. Use Gestalt to your advantage.

A wonderful thing about 20th C "-isms" is that artists explored and pushed Art to the limits, making many principles explicit and discovering many new ones. Do not constrain yourself. Who says your current faces may not be considered beautiful? Maybe you are on the track to a new style. Only you should decide if you like it. Actually, if I hadn't commented before, it was because I didn't know if your output was intentional and if I comment now it is because it seems that you are not satisfied.

Final note: take all this with a grain of salt. My experience may not work for you. Whatever you do, try to have fun. That's all you are going to take (and value) from your life.
 
I definitely see an improvement in the last painting you posted! YouTube videos can really help you progress faster instead of getting frustrated not knowing what you’re doing over and over again that’s wrong. You just see the result and you’re not happy.
I have not read through this entire thread. But I would like to add if it hasn’t already been suggested, that to practice portraits (which I have sold many commissions) the thing I did most was draw, draw, draw! That’s where you learn your skills then you move onto painting. Because painting adds a whole other element of colour and shadow and is a huge step in complexity.
If you’re painting first and you don’t have your drawing foundation, you’re just running into problems. It is practice. Lots of it. Practising what you’re seeing. And realizing what you’re seeing. Because often what’s there is different than what we put down on paper. Beginners like to draw eyes like Egyptian eyes in ancient paintingsand that is not what they look like (as an example).
You start with certain landmarks. It is a general guide of where facial landmarks lineup in relation to one another. But if you use that, and you keep it perfect symmetrical, the person will never look right. It is a guide only to get you started. From there, you look at how this individual is slightly different from those guide marks. Very few people have perfectly symmetrical faces. When you start looking for it, you will see all the differences from one side of the face to the other. Also, you will notice that some people are more narrow in places or wider in places than that general guide. Some have higher foreheads. Some of lower foreheads. Some have a small chin. That’s what you wanted to be looking for. The individuality.
After that, it’s also how you treat line. You don’t just do one thickness of line for the whole drawing. How you draw the rounded shape of the eyelid for example or the nose. You don’t outline the mouth. The line will be stronger or lighter or almost fading out In places to imply a sculptural 3D form. This also implies shape and distance. In drawing when you get going, you’re gonna practice shading with crosshatching or smudging and highlighting with eraser. Not everything is a strong contrast. I can’t. You are now putting form to the face.You have to try to get that middle shades, but then not be as afraid to put in real dark when you need it You leave it for the darkest just as you leave white for the little bit of the brightest highlight if there is one. The shading really implies the skin and the cheeks not just the lighting -it implies form and substance. Beginners and drawing often go through a stage where they have the dark here and the dark lines and I pretty much white page for the rest. That’s what you want to move past with the greys in the cross hatching of the smudging. And you want to soften the hair and soften or strengthen the line to imply, roundness and sculpture of the face.
When you are drawing eyes remember that the top lid covers part of the eye. Unless the person is incredibly startled. That lid will also cast a slight shadow across the top of the eyeball that is seen. Treat your hair as a form instead of trying to draw every strand. You can hint at strands. But try not to make it all individual strands as it takes away from the face. And the other thing that we are taught to do to focus the viewer is to have more definition on the triad (eyes and nose and the mouth) and slightly less definitionas you go out from that triad. Think of how a camera focusses on a face. Especially if it’s close-up. This creates a little bit of distance and a little bit of foreground. And it puts a viewer right where you want them on that person‘s face.
I hope that helps.
 
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