Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Dina Wakely Face Book Class

This past weekend I was privileged to be able to attend an art class with one of the mixed media, paper crafting, worlds superstars, Ms Dina Wakely. She was visiting Canada, teaching a class at everyone's favorite paper crafting store, Clipper Street in Langley, BC. I had a BLAST! This lady rocks! And I learned SO MUCH! I took the Face Book Class which was not only fun but really helped me loosen up. Can I just say that when you study art in university that they DO NOT teach you the "easy" way to do anything. In fact I've always felt like if it was too easy, you weren't doing it right! How dumb is that? Anyhow, this class was perfect for me. So I have commited myself to journal everyday, and drawing 100 faces in my art journal till I can do it with my eyes closed (something I tried a few photo's below! haha). Here was my art journey over the weekend!

First up, here I am with Dina and my BBFF Shelley on the left.

And here is Dina teaching us a blind contour drawing of one of the students faces.
This was my first *Face* drawing after learning the *cheat sheet* or well, prolly the way I shoulda always been drawing portraits! I am not showing you the very first face drawing..... that's just not right! lol I should add that before starting this Dina had us gesso and cover the backgrounds with some fun stencils and sprays, which I quite like the added interest, it's not anything I would have done on my own and I'm glad I did it. This face is drawn with a Stabilo pencil and then gone over with a water brush. Seriously?!?! WHY did no one show me this before?? Ugh.... maybe I was sick that day?

Then after the first try, we again drew over a fun background but this time we painted over top with acrylic paint, using some big bold colours for shadows and not blending it too much. Again, a loose-ness to painting that I have always admired but had difficulty allowing myself to do the same. I will now! I was quite happy with this one.


Next we tried using the same rules on a 3/4 view face and I again was quite happy. I was thinking of painting this one as well but Im afraid I'll wreck it (I know...there should be no fear!). As Dina would say, they'll always make more paper!

And then she had us paint a background with some colour blocking for the face to draw over top of. This one looked like  a zombie to me at first....sometimes it still does, but that's ok. I enjoyed doing the face either way.

And last, but not least, she taught us some contours. Contours are no stranger to me, although it has been a few years since I've done any myself. I used to teach them to kids in Elementary school during the art in schools week when Id volunteer there. First we did a contour face using a reference. I used a magazine photo of Caesar Millan. Then the 2nd was a blind contour in which we started at the reference and did not look at the paper. They're purdy!! lol

So that was the class. GREAT teacher and learned so much! She's challenged us to draw 100 faces! So I'm ready to go! I have been drawing faces on one page in my journal at nights and here they are. I will continue to show my progress in this new art adventure here!


Thanks for looking!
Cheri

1 comment:

Creative Tara said...

So fun! I hope I get a chance to take a class with her sometime- there's lots of teachers that come near where I live now, just need the $ to take all the classes I want! Can't wait to see what else you keep drawing :)