Facing My Fears

Last week's lesson in Jane Davenport's Supplies Me online course was focused on coloured pencils and featured a tutorial from Jane on how to draw faces.  I don't do much drawing or doodling, mostly because I don't feel that I know what I'm doing and as a result, don't consider myself to be very good at it.  Which is one of the reasons I signed up for this course in the first place, because the class description said the emphasis would be on faces and the figure.  I figured it was time to face my fear of drawing by learning how to draw faces.

So, I dutifully watched Jane's instructional videos (which are stunningly awesome to watch, she is such a talented artist, it would be totally intimidating if she wasn't already in the process of showing us what to do but knowing Jane and seeing how encouraging she is, it's only slightly intimidating instead of being completely intimidating), took a deep breath, picked up my drawing instrument (sometimes a pen, sometimes a pencil) and started drawing.

I started by doodling with a pen and paper last week when things got a wee bit boring at the work conference in Niagara Falls (I've been carrying pens and a sketchbook around since seeing Jane do it in Portugal in June, just hadn't actually gotten brave enough to use them yet!) - here's the first face I drew:

Then I got a bit braver, and drew a few more:

Once I got home from the conference, I was able to pull out my coloured pencils and give them a try:

I have to say, I'm pretty excited about the results. I definitely need more practice, especially on drawing noses, that seems to be the most challenging feature of the human face for me so far, but I'm actually looking forward to doing more faces with this week's featured supply category - watercolour paints.  Stay tuned!