How to Draw and Paint Facial Features Part 3

The nose knows.

I did this drawing in class, while discussing the structure of the nose.

You may find the first 2 parts of this series about painting facial features, in which I demoed drawing and painting the eye,  here at Part 1, and Part 2.

This was one of several reference photos that I presented to my class. 

Key points to look for:
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~The width of the nose compared to the length.

~Look for the ball on the end of the nose.

~Notice the nostrils are not circle shaped but more tear drop.

~Look for the bump most people have on the bridge of the nose where the bone ends and cartilage begins. 

~The cast shadow will help describe the shape of the nose and the shape of the cheek so pay careful attention to it.

A fun video to watch is Proko.com's, How to Draw a Nose Step-By-Step. 

I worked from my premixed flesh color palette. To see the post about mixing these color strings see my post, How to Draw and Paint Facial Features Part 2.

I transferred the drawing onto the toned panel, then I went over the drawing using a permanent sepia pen.

I then worked from dark to light and background to foreground. 

I decided that the shadows were warm and the highlights were cool.

Key points:

~Soften edges by painting adjacent wet areas in one sitting. 

~Think of the planes of the nose. Moving from left to right they are: the cheek, left side of nose, top, right side of the nose, and cheek. 

~Allow most of your brush strokes to move across the form rather along the form to better describe the dimensionality of the form.

~Use a warm dark color mixture on the nostrils avoiding blue. I like a combination burnt umber, permanent matter deep and transparent oxide orange.

If I wanted to refine it more I could keep working as long as the paint was wet. Then let it dry for a couple days and do a second pass. 

Thanks for playing, see you next time when we take a lick at lips.