New Faces

Today and Sunday, I got up too late to walk.
It was already sunny outside.


The other day my friend, artist Jacki Long, suggested I draw a face and make a collage out of it.

I started out by tiding up my art space and looking at faces in magazines.


I didn't want to tear a page out of my sketchbook, so I did the drawing using a pad of special paper.

It is a smooth and coated paper, something that would probably be good for making ink lines.



I used water-soluble crayons like these:

Then I drew a few faces with the crayons.

(I wasn't trying to be realistic)

Lately I've been covered the drawing with a wash of ink or watercolor, letting it drip down.

In the first one I drew just an outline of the face.

The watercolor wash erased most of the line.

Also I discovered that the watercolor dried very slowly on this kind of paper.


For the next one I drew a few more details, especially the eyes.

Then I put another wash over it.

This was more interesting, but the wash was supposed to be more pink and less Carrie.


Because the water dried so slowly, I thought of putting powdered pigment or salt on the next one.


Instead, I noticed that the watercolor crayons had a neat effect on the very smooth paper.

They acted less like crayons and more like oil pastels.


I drew more and more lines on the face.

I really like this oily effect, and just drew more lines instead of erasing it with water.

In the end I forgot about tearing it up to make a collage.

Maybe next I'll try another self portrait using the crayons and this paper.