How do you put beauty into a face ?

[stlukesguild]

Thank you for your reply ,I guess practice is the answer .

Practice is a large part of achieving anything in art. Striving for “beauty” will always be challenging because we all have different notions of just what beauty it. My suggestion would be that you continue to practice to achieve something similar to works of art that you find beautiful… in your instance, faces. Personally, I find the most challenging aspect of drawing/painting faces is to not only achieve a sense of beauty but also capture a sense of accuracy to a given individual.

 

[PaintBoss]

Exactly right St. Luke!
Encourage you to see the beauty in what would not typically be “beautiful” faces. In fact, some of the most boring faces to draw and bodies too, are those that are like models! There is an awful a lot of beauty out there in different forms. For example the life history hinted at on an old face! Also the challenge to draw all the wrinkles and folds, etc.But I took your question to mean how to get more proficient to make a face look more realistic.

 

[stlukesguild]

I might add that the human face… and perhaps to a lesser extent, the human body… is one of the most difficult subjects to master not merely because of the broad array of poses and expressions as well as “types” (old, young, thin, muscular, etc…) but also because of the fact that the human face especially is likely the subject we are most familiar with. We look at faces everyday: our reflection in the mirror or captured in selfies… the faces of friends, family, colleagues, etc… As a result, the human face is that one subject that even those with little or no art background can still recognize when something looks “wrong”. Most of us might not recognize if the structure of a tree or a flower or even an animal is a bit “off” but not so for the human face. For this reason, if you are striving for a more “realistic” image of the face you will almost certainly need to put in some time studying facial anatomy and proportions. Look carefully at the placement of the eyes, nose, lips, etc… within the head as a whole. Explore the structure of the eyes, nose, ears, etc… certainly you may always begin immediately with paint. Some artists such as Rembrandt, Titian, Van Gogh, etc… took this approach… but most had years of experience in drawing the face and the figure under their belt. Personally, I can’t think of a better way to improve the sense of accuracy (and beauty) to your paintings of the face/figure than to spend a good deal of time drawing the same.

 

[PaintBoss]

St. Luke, I cannot agree more. There is no substitute for practice. Practice observing and practice drawing. And although we can do a lot looking at photos, there is also the real benefit of drawing from a live model or people you observe in front of you. That will really teach your skills quickly. And it will definitely show you where you need improvement. There’s lots to learn. First of all you have to tackle the face straight on and then add a profile and then at 3/4, and then with head tilts. There’s a lot to dig into there. How to handle form and line, lighting and contrast. But just learning how to do basic landmarks and learn to see how your subject deviates from those landmarks, really can get you started. It teaches you to really look and not assume what you think is there because you have looked at faces your whole life in passing.
The artist in this says that everyone has landmarks in the same place and you just have to look at the little details and see what’s different. I think I say it differently. You start out with the basic layout of the typical face and then see how your subject varies from that. Your subject might have a longer or wider nose. Or a bigger forehead. Or a very wide smile or narrow eyes. That’s where you have to adjust. And you can once you have the landmarks down. Children facial proportions are slightly different. And there’s lots of YouTube videos and books on how to draw any of this.

 

[snoball]

I can be watching someone speak from a podium and all the while I am studying how the shadows fall from his features, the way his eyes shape with certain expressions, even the way a wave might appear in his hair.