Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces: A Mixed-Media Portrait Workshop

A stylish concept of drawing faces with creative idea and expression. Not a long book, fast reading and contains all info for “creation” beyond the traditional face drawing. Easy steps to follow and non traditional color to make the drawing extra ordinary. What I enjoy is learn how to mingle mix media. So happy I have bought the book. I read kindle version.

I have many art related books on my book shelf. This is one of my favorite. Although I only received this book 4 (?) days ago, I have read it from beginning to end and I recommend it, with no reservations; but beware, this is not a book that you will simply read through once and put it away. You will read it over and over as you practice and perfect your art of drawing the face. Why do i say this? One and a half years ago, I thought that I couldn't draw! After three months in my first class with Jane, I was astounded that I was learning the art faster than I'd ever imagined. Make no mistake, I still consider myself a beginner artist and I have an immense amount to learn. Yet, the pace at which I am learning, I solely attribute to Jane. If you can't take one of Jane's classes, this book is a must. Standing alone, the book is filled with rich colors that delight the eye. Nevertheless, Beautiful Faces is dedicated to ANYONE who wants to draw and paint. As an initial matter, I must say that Jane is passionate about drawing, painting and art supplies. :) Her passion stokes a student's creativity, while making art fun. She has a bubbly personality and is prone to laughter and random displays of humor. She doesn't take herself too seriously, which in turn, puts the novice at ease, and as you will find in the book, is overly generous in sharing her knowledge, and tips. In Beautiful Faces, Jane describes the various art supplies that one uses, for instance, paper, watercolor, pencils, paints, markers, inks, mediums, and more. She explains how and what they are used for. Before beginning the details of drawing, she covers the basic foundation that one needs to understand in order to make the learning process easier. Her drawing and painting instructions are clear, concise and easy to follow along with her. She covers all aspects of drawing the face, including my favorite and most difficult, drawing hair. She provides step-by-step instructions for drawing each feature. In the chapter on painting, she touches on various topics, including the all important topic of "shading." The tone of the book is encouraging from beginning to end, and the book is peppered with examples of Jane's work. All in all the book is clearly designed so that we too, can draw beautiful faces. Finally, I'd like to point out that this is an amazing book that is worth every penny. After studying , if you are sincerely interested in drawing, I heartily recommend that you register for the online e-course Beautiful Faces, or one of the many courses that Jane offers. They are reasonably priced and offer more detailed instructions than she can possibly include in this one book.

Jane Davenport is an excellent art instructor, probably one of the best in the world. I don't know her personally, but since I began taking her online classes, my ability to draw faces and figures has been so strengthened that I am amazed at how much my art has improved. The way she teaches students how to draw faces is very easily understood and followed. In her video lessons, she's very thorough, and explains things simply without talking down to her students, and her bubbly personality removes any stress from drawing that a student might have. What's that got to do with this book, one could ask? Well, it's that she writes exactly how she talks in her lessons. I can hear her voice as I read this book and she breaks everything down just as beautifully as she does in her videos. Her enthusiasm and supportive personality comes through in this book, which is very rare for a teacher who is charismatic in person, but who can't write all that well. I love the way she presents color and teaches students to think outside the box when shading portraits. And the way she teaches students how to use all of their different media together is wonderful--one might believe she put the mixed in mixed media art! She suggests ways to use media that I never would have thought of, and I'm always messing about with paints and pencils and inks and papers. All of that color play is in this book, giving readers a chance to try all of these different techniques right away. Finally, this book is a treat to look at. The colors are vivid and eye-catching, the faces and figures are fluid and full of life and movement. Jane has vision and in presenting it so clearly in this book, she encourages readers and students to develop their own vision and style. A lovely book all around. Well worth your time if you want to learn how to draw really beautiful faces with every kind of art supply out there!

I have a confession. I was horrible at drawing faces on my fashion sketches. For decadesI just left them blank. And, by the way, I'm a fashion designer who went to FIT! I could render clothing but fine but felt so lacking because of my faceless sketches. Honestly, illustrative sketches are the smallest part of the job. The reality is technical sketches are what really are used. Sketches just get the overall ideas at the beginning of each season. This void in my skills really bothered me. My brain couldn't make the leap from the fine art, highly detailed, life drawing I knew to the mere suggestion of faces used in fashion sketches. I tried book after book to teach myself. I came across Jane Davenport's fanciful illustrations on YouTube. I also learned that she started out in fashion illustration. After watching more than a few videos I decided to get this book. From the first excercise, I was able to master the skills that eluded me! Her lessons include step by step technical instruction and brilliant advice on how to loosen up and go with the flow. Granted, I have years of sketching behind me, so some hand/eye coordination and skill came back to me but the improvement has been incredible. I can't thank Jane Davenport enough. She isn't just an extremely talent artist, she is a great and thoughtful teacher as well. Seriously, my professor at FIT told me I needed to "Run through the streets of New York naked," to loosen up! What I really needed was to do through Jane's exercises over and over as just as she explains. I can't explain how liberating this has been. I do love art journaling, playing with different materials and just playing. I can't wait to complete my journey through the rest of this beautiful book.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this book. Beautiful book - ditto on what everybody has said so far. It is full of detailed information ala Jane style. Every bit helps bring out the best in every student. Again, ala Jane style. For example, the information she provides for supplies is obviously not for profit. She talks about her tools as if every single one is a well loved best friend. If you have watched any of her videos, they are. Unlike other artists who exalt products because they stand to gain by it directly thru sales and/or indirectly thru sponsorship and who obviously only use the product to justify the not so transparent marketing ploy, Jane recommends products because she uses them. A. Lot. While she highly recommends specific brands, she also encourages students to find their own favorites. I can't draw worth a doodle, let alone a face. That was me. Jane said 'of course you CAN'. Less than a month later, I did and have been ever since. Anybody who's taken any of her online workshops knows this. This book is no different. Enough said. The only negative about this book? I wish it were on DVD as well... DVD update: An online workshop, Beautiful Faces, is scheduled to start March 2015. According to the description, it is the 'live' equivalence of this book. As with all of Jane's workshops, the students are given 'lifetime' access to the videos. Be aware that 'lifetime' does not mean the student's lifetime. But you already knew that, right? The workshop is pretty pricey $155.00. The videos are in Vimeo format and none are downloadable. That's a real downer and deal breaker for my money. Unlimited access is great but it requires connectivity. If you only have a desktop and no mobile devices, it also restricts your art space to within the confines of your desktop. Vimeo doesn't play nice with every browser. It frequently hangs in IE and is virtually unviewable in Firefox. Jane's Whimsical Face came with a DVD option. I think I paid $50 for both. Now that's more realistic. I can learn from Jane truly ANYWHERE. $173 (includes $18 for book) for Beautiful Faces for a lot LOT less. You do the math. Don't get me wrong. Jane has the best workshops. Ever! I just wished that I could actually have my money's worth...

Jane "Danger" Davenport makes wonderful faces. They're not especially realistic in form, feature, color, or angle of neck, but they are wonderful, whimsical, and beautiful, as the title promised. Her instruction is step by step, very simple and repeatable. 35 pages of preliminaries lay out materials and how to use them, before we ever put pencil to paper. She then starts with little doodle faces, encouraging us to do dozens of them, and it breaks down the "I CAN'T DRAW!!" monster in all of us. Then, after we've doodled all over several pages of our sketchbooks, she breaks down each feature, from nostrils to hairdo; color blending; where to put the shadows and why; and she plays with some slightly unusual backgrounds. Finally, we are invited to participate in online workshops, which I presume, given what I've seen of her on YouTube and elsewhere, will be lively and engaging -- just as Jane is. I've long enjoyed trying to draw faces; lumpy early attempts fill several sketchbooks. I always had to kind of wing it, though: stare at a picture and just try to make a similar shape with similar features on another page. Ms. Davenport has helped me find other ladies in my head, most of whom I don't even need a model for--they just "fall out of the pencil," as she puts it. I recommend this book and pretty much anything Jane "Danger" Davenport has on offer. Oh, and she's Australian, so it's even fun just listening to her talk.

Lots to learn from and ideas to play with and try your hand at. Can be used for learning to draw, not just painting. The lessons can be translated to whatever medium you enjoy. She favor multi-media and has the best materials to use but mentions that using whatever you have will be fine. She's really a lot of fun.

Love Jane Davenport! Great book!

Aunque está en inglés y no lo entiendas todo, los dibujos paso a paso son muy claros y entendedores. Te da muchas ideas de técnicas. Yo no me atrevía con las caras y después de tenerlo ya me he puesto a ello. Además las ilustraciones de Jane son preciosas.

This is by far my favourite art book ever! It is a thing of beauty as well as a brilliant *how to* book. I love the beautiful *Jane* drawings and paintings throughout - sometimes printed in unusual ways which made me see stuff differently, always a good thing for anyone with artistic aspirations. At the beginning there are sections on supplies which have led me to find all kinds of fun new products to try. There are many detailed instructional pieces on all the aspects of drawing and painting faces such as hair, eyes etc. as well as step by step techniques to paint particular styles of girls. The step by step pieces also detail what products are used which is super-helpful, although one doesn't need to use those exact items it's handy to get a sense of what shades and types of supply do what. Jane's style of teaching is fun, easy to understand and even though I've barely *scratched the surface* of this book I have drawn faces I never dreamed I could do as a result. So many ideas packed into one book - I can't recommend it highly enough!

Jane Davenport nous explique comment elle dessine ses visages, les différentes façons de les mettre en couleur et il est très facile et rapide de mettre en application ses conseils. Je vous conseille ce livre, très bien construit et expliqué, si vous avez envie de développer votre univers creatif !

I purchased this book to get a view on how the artist Jane uses different media, although her style is not at all mine. I was very surprised to see her creative approach with simple, easily accessible materials; I think I was lacking such an approach after going deeply into expensive, artist quality materials. Her book is a refresher and a take away from my serious studio, I really love it.

El libro llegó en perfectas condiciones y un día antes de lo esperado. Las illustraciones son bellísimas e inspiradoras, Jane te toma de la mano y te explica cada paso del proceso. Cómo principiante, lo recomiendo!