Art Tips- Differences Between Male and Female Skull, Head, Face

This video will illustrate the differences between male and female faces. In part 1 of this video, I will compare male and female facial features, bone structure and musculature. In the in the second part of this video, I will do a demonstration. During this demonstration, I will review what we learned in the first part and teach you how to draw the nuances of the male and female face for artistic (art) purposes. During my demonstration, I use a pencil an eraser and a blending stick (stub) also known as a tortillion.
Lets look at the differences of the male and female skull first and then we will work our way up to the skin. Male and female children have similar skull shapes. But once children hit puberty, the differences start to appear. Testosterone provokes the growth of certain facial features in males, while female faces remain relatively childlike. The presence of higher levels of testosterone give men a thicker bone structure with more prominent bones. Male faces have a wider, more prominent jaw, chin and cheekbones (also known as the zygomatic arch). The physical size of the male skull is usually larger than the female skull. A very distinct characteristic of a male skull, is a protruding supraorbital ridge also known as a brow line.
Female faces are more rounded and tend to have a narrow jaw line. They have a softness that the male face lacks. It carries more fat than the male face, especially in the cheeks. Female faces tend to have thicker lips and a higher arch on the top lip. Female eyebrows generally sit a little higher than male eyebrows and they usually have a thinner and more arched shape, mainly due to plucking. The female nose tends to be smaller, shorter and have a narrower bridge and nostrils than the male one. Also, female noses often have a straighter or more concave profile. Men tend to have thicker and lower eyebrows than women. The male jaw line is wider than the female chin. It is also more muscular and square in shape. The lips are thicker and more full on a female. Also there is less of a distance between the arch of the top lip and the bottom of the nose.
Before we go on to part 2. I want to make this complex subject as simple as possible so I took notes for you! If you are watching this on youtube hit the link. If not, just go to my website Merrillk.com and type skull in the search box and download this cheat sheet for when you draw.
Merrill Kazanjian is a contemporary artist based in New York City. He is also a New York State Certified Art instructor with 8 years of experience. He specializes in drawing, painting and mixed media art.

Moneymorph- Greenspan + Bernanke + Mr. Krabs + Trump + Cramer + Monopoly Guy

What would a "merger" of Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Donald Trump, Mr. Krabs, Jim Cramer and the Monopoly Guy look like? Watch the video to find out! Sell Sell Sell !!!! Artmorph by Merrill Kazanjian

A Character

I documented the steps that I took to draw/paint a friend of mine. Local (Queens NYC) Baseball/Stickball/Handball legend Joseph "KJ" Alexander Moretti

How to Draw an Angry Mouth Step by Step (Screaming Mouth)

Today, I am going to show you, step by step, how to draw an angry mouth. Pause the video at the end of each step and be sure to look at the screen every few seconds while you draw. I am confident that you will surprise yourself if you take your time and listen carefully. Here we go.

Step 1- Draw a big U shape but make the two lines at the top of the U point slightly outwards and away from each other. Pause the video now and remember to look at the reference picture on your computer screen.
Step 2- Draw a second U shape above the first and close the lines to form a crescent moon shape. Notice that the widest point of this shape is the middle and that the shape gets narrow and pointy at the top where the edges of both lines meet.
Step 3- When a person screams, the bottom lip presses firmly against the bottom set of teeth. Only the tooth tops are visible. The shape of these tooth tops is somewhere between a square and circle. Make 8 to 10 and stay light with the lines in between the teeth. Pause the video now and don't forget to look every few seconds.
Step 4- Now we draw the tongue. It is a rounded shape that is wider at the top than the bottom. It is kind of like drawing a heart shape without a pointed bottom or an indentation at the top. Pause the video now and be sure to look every few seconds while you draw.
Step 5- Add a rainbow shape at the top. Be sure to notice the amount of space between the top of the tongue and the rainbow shape. Pause the video now.
Step 6- Add a second rainbow shape above the first. Like the bottom lip, the top lip gets more narrow at the edges and wider in the middle. Be sure to notice that the bottom lip is thicker than the top lip. This is true for every person. Pause the video now and be sure to look at the screen every few seconds.
Step 7- Now make a half circle shape beneath the top lip. Notice that the edges at the bottom protrude slightly. Pause the video now and remember to look.
Step 8- When a person screams, the top teeth are exposed because the top lip goes upwards. Your task is to draw 12 teeth. Notice that the front four face the viewer but the others start to turn away. Notice that as the teeth go further back in to the mouth, they get smaller. I know that molars and wisdom teeth are much larger in real life than a front teeth, but please trust me and pause the video and draw what you see. I will explain why this happens in the next part.

Ideally, you should have three things to do the shading. At the top is a blending stub. In the middle is a 2B pencil and at the bottom is a HB pencil.

When I shade, I:
- Use a method called cross hatcing
- Develop the shading evenly (I move the pencil around to the different parts of the drawing.

Alternative Process to Oil Painting

My Alternative to oil painting by Merrill Kazanjian- Recently, I have made a lot of videos teaching about the techniques that I use to make art. But, for once, I want to talk to you about choices that I made with my own art. The first medium that I was proficient in was oil painting. But after college ended, I was too drained to paint after I got home from a day of work. The setup and clean up of paints took as long as the process of painting and the drying time was way too slow for my needs. I estimate that I painted only once or twice per week for about three hours per day and I only produced about two finished paintings per year. I did this for six years.

I slowly started dabbling with mixed media art. What you are seeing now is a process that I have worked out over the past 2 years for the past two years. This process allows me to have results similar to oil paintings, done in one day rather than six months. I even incorporate oil paint in to one of the steps.

Here it is:
1.) Pencil Drawing
2.) Illustration Markers (prismacolor, Ad, Decocolor)
3.) Color Pencil
4.) Thin Layer of Oil Paint
5.) Digital Additions (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro)

I use this process to make my characters. Over the last 2 years I have made over 1500 characters. I scan them and save them as PNG files and I use them over and over in my artwork. PNG files stand for Portable Network Graphic and they are basically a filetype that works like a sticker. Stay tuned until the end of the video and I will show you what I mean. Contact me through my website merrillk.com or leave me a youtube comment and I will be sure to get back to you.
Category: Education

Drawing of Glass of Water (Part 2)- Illustration Markers, Color Pencil and Oil Paint

I am going to be using illustration markers, color pencils and oil paint. Just drop me a line if you have any questions

In step 1 I scanned and reprinted my original drawing- I do this for 2 reasons- 1.) If I mess up, I could just reprint it and 2.) marker and color pencil coexist better with printer ink than with graphite from a pencil.

Next I add a layer of the illustration markers. These markers are totally transparent and they enable me to add a layer of color and still be able to see the lines from my pencil drawing. These markers give the artist a similar effect to watercolor paint, but without the messy setup and clean up.. I am still following the Polaroid picture development analogy from the first video- in that I am adding color to all areas at an even pace and slowly building up the darker tones on the sides and bottom of the glass.

The color pencil is great at this point of the drawing, because it adds a translucent layer of color above the marker. In addition to that, color pencils are mixed with wax. The wax will be very handy in the next step when I add oil paint on top of the marker and color pencil. Working with color pencil also allows me to be very precise with my marks on the page. It can be very challenging to be as accurate with a paint brush. This step allows me to make my drawing more accurate and these clarifications will eventually be absorbed by the oil paint.

Now you are going to see me add three layers of oil paint to finish my drawing. I am using oil paint because I want to edit the colors of this composition and it is much easier to mix and match color with oil paint than it is with color pencil. It is also easier to apply large areas of color with a paintbrush rather than the tiny tip of a pencil. I did all of my editing in the last step and now I am just applying color, trying to notice the nuances of the edges of each shape on my reference. If I need to soften an edge I use a dry, soft brush and I pull the paint with that. The color pencil from the layer below is blending nicely with the paint.

Drawing Tips- (Charcoal and Pencil) Drawing of a Glass of Water

Hint number 1 is to see things as shapes. I like to analogize drawing with assembling a jigsaw puzzle because in both you look for shapes to fit together Hint number 2 is to pay close attention to the edges of what you are drawing. Light and shadows can do funny things and in almost anything that you draw you will see a disparity between the qualities of each edge. Hint number three is to develop your drawing like a Polaroid photograph. Polaroid was the company that innovated instant photography. After pushing the shutter button the photograph would come out of the camera and develop before your eyes. What I want you to know about this is that every part of the photo would develop at the same rate and that is how I want you to try to draw next time. In other words, move the drawing tool around, dont get stuck in a favorite spot. Alright, lets slow it down. What you are seeing me do here is pay close attention to the form and the proportions. In other words, I am comparing the sizes of the different shapes and making sure that the placement of each line is correct. I am using vine charcoal a HB pencil and an eraser. I started out with the vine charcoal because it is easy to erase and move around. You will see later in this video that after I am satisfied with the placement of the charcoal, I will hatch over it with a pencil to keep it undisturbed. I am also trying to be aware of the edges of my shapes and I am especially cognizant of the highlight on the top because that will require me shading the areas around it and using the white of the page as a representation of the strong light. Now when I look back at my reference, I notice that the tone of the background is much darker than the white of the page. I use the side of the charcoal to darken the mid tone of my drawing. This step will make it easy to draw in the highlights with an eraser a little bit later. Now I am folding a piece of paper towel to smudge in the charcoal. You will get a very similar result with a blending stump (also known as a tortillion) but the towel will smudge the charcoal more quickly. To be perfectly honest, many teachers that I have had have told me not to use a blending stump, fingers or anything that comes in to contact with the surface of the paper. I partially agree. Oil from fingers when combined with pencil or charcoal leaves a stain that is tough to work around. Notice that my hand is resting on a sheet of paper. Artists call these slip sheets, but it is just a sheet of computer paper. I like working with the blending stump and the paper and this process works for my needs. It would be dishonest if I changed my process for the sake of making a video. Before, I mentioned the term hatching. Hatching is the short name for the drawing technique of cross hatching. It is simply putting a series of lines next to one another with a drawing tool. These lines usually follow the shape of the object that is being drawn. Once I am done adding pencil marks, I take the blending stub to burnish over my hatch marks. This gives my drawing a more smudged look and possibly my former art teachers a heart attack. I like to smudge the pencil and charcoal because it also gives me a surface that is smooth in tone. Hatching can be layered and I usually stop using the blending stump after the second layer. I once did ten layers of hatching in a pencil drawing. Lets recap and take this to the end of part 1. My focus, over the course of any drawing that I do from observation, is to see a simple pattern of shapes on my reference and to accurately render these shapes, on to the piece of paper that I am drawing. After I get the shapes aligned correctly, I attempt to build up tones with charcoal and pencil. When I am building the tones, I am very aware of the nuances of the edges of each shape, because they are usually different. My focus is also on building the tones of my drawing in a similar manner to how a Polaroid photograph develops. In part 2, I will teach you a way to add color to any pencil drawing. Thanks for watching the video and please let me know if this helped. Merrill Kazanjian