Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Tuesday Tutorial with Becky from Cotton Picking Primitives

Drawing a perfectly prim doll face

Today, I am beginning a new primitive doll, and I would like to share the process I use to draw the face onto the pattern, and then transfer it to the doll with you. This is a very easy way to get the features all aligned, and centered so it looks like a real face

Materials needed:
Card stock
pencil
post it or generic sticky note
transfer (carbon) paper 

I use card stock to create my patterns so they are more durable and I can trace around them several times before I need a new one. Use whatever color you prefer.
This is the completed face,drawn on the pattern. Dotted lines mean needle sculpted features, and solid lines indicate painted features. I did the nose is dotted lines to denote that I am going to needle sculpt it, and not paint it in. I am going to do both to the lips, so I just used a solid line for them and the eyes.

You can make make any shape, or size lips, nose, eyes, etc. with this method, and get a mirror image every time. 
This is a very easy way to create different styles of faces.
I discovered by accident that the inexpensive "generic" sticky notes from
the dollar store are transparent, and work well as a small tracing paper.
Lay the note on top of what you've drawn, and trace over the lines onto
the post-it. 

Fold the template in half to find your center for placement. 
Draw 1/2 of your nose, and 1/2 of the eye and eyeball, and half of the mouth at the crease. 

Even though this is free hand, it is very easy to create a half shape, than
a full eye or lip.
Next, I turn the post it note over, and place the other half of the eye where it needs to go. Note that the nose and mouth are toward the outside edge at this point. (Your sticky note will be more transparent,and the lines will be on the under side until you trace over them, I did this for presentation purposes). There is no need to use any kind of transfer paper, the lines you traced on the front will copy well when you draw over them on the back side.
ll that is left to do now is to transfer the pattern to the doll.

I lay the template over the face prior to sewing the doll together, and slip a piece of light carbon transfer paper between the pattern and face, and draw over it right onto the right side of the face..

My next post will include a lesson on painting, and grunging the eyes ,lips,and needle sculpting the nose.

Happy crafting!

Thank you for sharing this fun tutorial Becky!
You can visit Becky here:

1 comment:

yorkie's primitives said...

Great tute! Thanks for sharing, Valerie