Drawing Expressions and Emotions

Expressions are one of the most visible things on the human body. Usually when seeing another person your eyes eventually travels to the face region, making you analyze there expressions. With their expression you can tell several things like there mood and emotions. When drawing, expressions is one thing that really pulls together a drawing. The character drawn could have a great figure and complex clothing but without a expression the drawing is incomplete. In the book, Drawing Manga, Faces, and Bodies, by Anna Southgate and Yishan Li, a section of the book is dedicated to drawing facial expressions. On page 18, Li and Southgate explain how to draw a face crying from happiness through an example. "The boy [or girl] is crying with laughter. His [or her] eyes are closed and eyebrows raised. They mirror the open-mouthed smile" (Southgate and Li, Pg. 18). I tend to forget about the crying from happiness expression, so it was good to be reminded of it again. As you can tell in the picture below to the left, I followed the advice they gave to the closest of my ability. There are small tears in the corner of the eyes, a wide opened smile and eyebrows raised. Their advice really helped me widen my library of expressions. This expression is often forgotten so it's important to be reminded of how to draw it correctly. Seeing this expression made me realize how much I like how it looks; therefor I will likely use this expression more in my personal artwork.

Considering how in the book, Drawing Manga, Faces, and Bodies, a large section of the book is dedicated to facial expression, I decided I would like to apply another expression tip to my work. The next tip was for a anguished or alarmed expression. Li and Southgate claimed that a slightly opened mouth would really help the expression out, and to top it off a furled brow pulls the expression together. (Southgate and Li, Pg. 18). In the top right photo I left the mouth slightly open, furled the brows, and to add my own touch, placed the light reflection in the eye on the same corner for a surprised affect. Using Southgate and Li's tips really helped my alarmed expression. Usually I would have a slightly curved line for the mouth, but a partly opened mouth brings out the expression. In my future drawings I'll definitely used a slightly open circle rather then a little curved line for the mouth. This also affected how I'll draw my eyebrows. I usually draw very thin eyebrows but I noticed sometimes thicker eyebrows can compliment the drawing. For example in my top right drawing I first drew the eyebrows thin, but it had a disproportioned feel to it. I then drew it thicker and furled and it seemed much more fit to the face.


Do you have a favorite expression to draw? If so, what kind of expression is it?

Southgate, Anna, and Yishan Li. Drawing Manga Faces and Bodies. New York: Rosen, 2013. Print.