Recently as I was looking at some of the amazingly talented artists out there I became jealous. Hey, I’ll readily admit that sometimes I dream I’m a famous illustrator and I drool over the beautiful spreads in the Caldecott Award Books. But then I wipe off the pages and remember I have something to offer too! In this specific case I think my jealousy was a good thing because it motivated me to action. I was noticing how the expressions of the characters seemed very natural. With only a few lines this illustrator was able to capture the essence of the emotion and portray it with ease. Some days my characters expressions come very naturally, other days I fight with the eraser until one of us wins (usually the eraser). So, I decided I’d teach myself to have natural and easy facial expressions on ALL my characters, cause it’s that easy right? My plan is to draw a face a day for a whole year or until I stop throwing my eraser. I’ll post them here once a week for everyone to see. Some will be total failures, some will be amazing successes, but my goal is to use an eraser as little as possible and grow as an artist in the process. And at the end of my little experiment who knows, I just might hear a Caldecott calling my name…
