Face Maps

The students and I studied a map of the face. After looking around at each other, we discovered that the face map is amazingly accurate, even with the infinite variety in human beings. The eyes rest on a horizontal line drawn across the middle of the head, which is a surprise as most people expect them to be much higher. This line is between the top of the head (not the hairline) and the bottom of the chin. Between the eyes is a space about the same width as an eye. The bottom of the nose is half way between the horizontal eye line and the bottom of the chin, and the middle line of the lips is half way between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin. A vertical line drawn down from the eye's pupil meets the side of the lip. The top of the ear comes to the eyebrow, and the bottom of the ear rests on the same line as the bottom of the nose. The nose consists of three ball like shapes, and the mouth has four. The chin has either one or two.


Even though this map seems to fit most faces, artists take liberties with it to make their art work expressive, and don't really think about it after they understand the basic structure. They look carefully at their subject or work from their imagination. It provides a place to begin when learning how to draw, paint or sculpt a face. Although each child followed the same map, it's amazing to see how it took them to a different place, or I should say face!


The children are now in the process of sculpting faces in relief with clay.