"Drawing" Faces Tutorial

I'll try as best I can to expain how to put a face on your applique lady (in this case the Civil War Bride Quilt - Bride Block).  If you can't freehand draw, like me, do a search at:   Google, Images, and type in free coloring pages faces or something similar.  Then find a line drawing of a face that appeals to you (such as on freecoloringpages4you.worldpress.com).  Under most of the images during your search you'll see the phrase "find similar images".  That can also bring up some good results.

Print out the face you have chosen.  If it's not the size that you need, you may have to reduce or enlarge it.

Then take skin colored fabric (I used the reverse side of some peach colored fabric I had in my stash - beige fabric would also have been a good candidate for the way I wanted my Bride to look) and iron freezer paper to the reverse side.

Put your chosen face on a lightbox.  Put your fabric with the freezer paper on the back on top and secure both pieces down to your lightbox with painters tape or similar so they won't slip around.

Now draw the face lightly with a mechanical pencil.  Check your work, and if you're not happy with it, do a little bit of light erasing, and try again.  If you're happy with it, go over the pencil lines with a brown or black Micron pen (use one that has a fairly fine point such as an 01).

Now take some colored pencils (the inexpensive Crayola brand are fine or whatever you have) and give her color to her lips, cheeks, and hair.  A good rule of thumb is to use 3 different colors on her hair including a yellow to show as hightlights so it won't look flat. 

Her eye needs 3 colors, the white part of the eye you'll just leave your plain fabric, then you'll have a colored part, and a black center.  To make her come to life she needs a little sparkle to her eyes. To do that, take a toothpick and dip the end into some white acrylic paint. Put just a dot on the black part of her eye.

I then took a peachy colored or ochre colored pencil and add some shading to her face.  It would be all around the outside of the face, under the chin, etc.  If you're at a loss, look in the mirror and see where the shadows show up on your face and put the same ones on your drawing.

When you're happy with the results, cut out your drawing, leaving your turn-under allowance all around the outside edge.  Applique her down and you're finished.

This is a technique I learned in a class from ArleneS at the Quilted Apple in Phoenix, AZ.