Craft tutorial - 6 steps to drawing a cloth doll facing using Pigma and Prismacolour

I have created a simple 6 step way to create a fast and effective cloth doll face.

The method uses only a limited group of colours - a sharp HB pencil, a Pigma Micron 01 fabric pen in brown, Prismacolour fabric pencils in Crimson Lake PC925, Tuscan Red PC937, and Goldenrod 1034, and a Gellyroll White fabric marker.

Here are the 6 steps (note I have drawn each separately rather than progressively so there a little variations in one face to the next - artistic imperfections would be a description)

Step 1: Lightly draw or trace the face using a sharp HB pencil.  Keep the detail limited.  This is really about getting the position of features and size right.  You can rub them off if they are not quite right.


Step 2: Mark the face in brown using a Pigma Micron 01 fabric pen.  I like to mark the eyes first and from the inside to the outside of the top lid, then the bottom of the eye in two stokes one from each side to meet in the middle at the bottom. I mark the irises next with a dot.

 I like to mark the eyelashes from inside to outside.  I like to mark the lips from the centre and do one half of top lip and then other half. Finally I mark the lower lip in one stroke.


Step 3: I add colour to the eyeballs and the lips.  The eyelid I mark a strong line of Tuscan Red (its really a dark foxy brown and great for brown eyes) all around the edge of the eyeball.

I mark the lips using Crimson Lake and one strong stroke at the top middle and bottom middle of the lip shapes.


Step 4: I shade the eyes and lips next.  To shade the eyes, I work in a wheel spoke type pattern from outside of eye to inside of eye lightening the stroke as I go to make the inner eye a little paler. I mark the eyes in Tuscan Red.



I also shade the lips from  outside to inside using Crimson Lake with the stroke becoming gentler and lighter as I move to centre of the lip.


Step 5: I add colour variation to the eyes and lips. This is by adding a little touch of Goldenrod to both the eyes and the lips.

For the eyes mark a line of Goldenrod around the iris and blend it into the Tuscan Red a little.

For the lip blend a little Goldenrod into the lip centre and fade it outwards.
 


Step 6: Add depth to the face.  I do this by firstly tracing over a little of my Pigma pen lines again to strengthen their colour.  I especially focus on the iris, the upper eyelid and the lower lip. I then add dots of Gellyroll white pen to the eyes on the right side of the iris and a couple of dots of Gellyroll pen to the right side of the lips (both from the same direction - I am assuming my lightsource for the face is from the right).
Add eyelid depth with a line of Goldenrod above the eye and then shade it upwards towards the eyebrows.

You are now done! Don't forget to press your face (under a cloth) to set the colours.


You can try variations with different colours (the one here is using Peacock Green PC 907 for the eyes and Magenta 930 for the lips).  You can blend a little red pencil on a fabric strip and mark blusher cheeks.  You could try different light angles for the Gelly White.

Comments

Trish Goodfield said…
You can see her come to life.
Bonnie said…
I agree with Trish, I could really see her come to life.

Fun, thanks.