Please help with carving Smiling Eyes

[Ventoux_Carver]

I'm new to carving (in France) and am having serious problems with making caricatures that smile. I seem to manage beards and noses OK, but smiles, especially their reflection in the eyes seems impossible. I've looked at caricature carving sites but all the faces seem 'sad' or 'grumpy' as my daughter says.

Does anyone know of a site that can show me how to carve a caricature with a smile, particularly around the eyes and eyebrows.

Thanks to any one that can help.

If no one can, that's OK. The site is great and I really enjoy looking at and hearing about all your work.

Thanks again.

[Bartster]

ventoux carver,


one thing that will help is to turn the sides of the moustache up, and this will make it look as if he is smilling,


hope this helps

bart

[Thomp]

I think the biggest help on expression study is a mirror..

and maybe a camera to document the mood your studying,

most carvers start out carving faces that are similar to there own anyway then learn how to change the features to older or younger..

practice in a mirror and watch the eyebrows as you smile and frown,
the expression dramatically changes,

now in the age of all this coligen and botox(sp) and surgery's to remove age and ugliness i think the future carvers will be hard pressed to carve emotion or rather find a subject capable of showing emotion in there face,,,

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

and bow the eyebrows up in the middle, kind of surprised look? also showing some teeth with the mouth slightly open indicates a smile....you can also kind of hump up the cheeks right under the eyes?? rounded? It gives you that jolly santa look.....hope something here helps

[Mitchell]

a big smile will make the eyes squinted - almost closed....as HiHo mentioned - with the eyebrows bowed.

[Dan S]

Ian Norbury has a book called "carving Expressions in wood". The book details a great deal about facial structure and how it all ties to emotion. It has helped me a great deal.

Dan

[Ventoux_Carver]

Many thanks to all for your helpful suggestions. I 've often wondered why some carvers resembled their caricatures, now I know! I'll post my carving once it's finished to see if I've been successful.
All the best in 2008.

[squbrigg]

Bonjour mon amis! Bienvenue!

Carving happy, smiling, faces requires "study" of happy, smiling, faces. I find them a real challenge too, and though I don't carve many faces, I did a few Santa Clauses this year before Christmas for my family. I searched on line for some smiling Santa's and found some old Coke-a-Cola ads that had a wonderful expressive Santa's face. You might give that a try.

Best of luck to you.

Bob

[Ventoux_Carver]

Never thought to look there but Coke ads are a great idea. Thank you squbrigg.

[Mitchell]

You can look through these pictures of Santa posted by decoycarve in the Reference forum:

Santas for reference.