Color or Black and White

After sketching these first in pencil, I drew these faces in black ink using a Pigma Micron 03 pen. I love the look of pen on paper, and sometimes I add just a touch of color. Often times, I go all out and color just like a child, except instead of crayons, I use copic markers. Several years ago I was given a nice set of Copic markers for Christmas, but the colors are all quite vivid and dark. Last Christmas, I asked to pick out Copic marker in flesh colors from Dick Blick. It's not easy to tell exactly what color the pens will be when ordering online, but I was pretty happy with them. So here is what I have been doodling around with recently.

This first one looks like Paris Hilton, quite by mistake to be sure. I find it hard to draw faces without a picture and they often look more "cartoonish" than I'm aiming for, but I usually end up liking them. I do like to come up with different backgrounds after drawing the face.

I am showing my hand in this shot only to show the size of this sketch book. It's hard for me not to get bogged down in detail, as tightly detailed pen and inks are my favorite thing to do. Just trying to lighten up a bit here.


On this little lady...

I was going for a 50's-60's look and a different shaped face. I had fun with the background in her's also.

Let's usher in the 70's with a big eyed hippy chick. I can't decide whether to color her in or not.

One of my favorite vintage pictures is of a lady named Faye, which was in with my uncle's military memories. I have had the original copied and I use it quite often in mixed media pieces, but I decided to try my hand at drawing a more realistic portrait using Faye for my model.

She has such a sweet, but sassy look on her face in the photo that was a bit hard to capture. To me, though, art is all about practice. I sometimes keep trying to achieve a specific look, simply to see if I can accomplish it. Other than high school art in 1970, I have no training, so I'm not too hard on myself.

This last drawing was supposed to be an anchor from a news show. She is very angular and has a larger neck than some women. When I drew her from memory, she looked more masculine than I wanted for the portrait, so I softened her jaw and made her neck smaller and she ended up looking a bit more like I had actually intended.


I have always loved to draw and I have an old notebook from my childhood that has some of my original girl drawings. I wanted to be a fashion designer, or a hair stylist, or a model and I expect that is why I love drawing the female form in some way. I still draw clothes and hats and such.

Oh well, I suppose that's it for now. If anything interesting comes up (like snow), I'll let you know. Take care and have a great weekend.