Mouth Technique

[Cottonwood]

On any part of carving a face, it usually turns out that I use a combination
of several carver's techniques to finally settle down on a technique for myself. I suspect that that is true for most of us. With that in mind, I would like to invite you to expound on the technique that you use to carve mouths and lips and include a picture of your finished product. By this exchange of ideas, it may help all of us to become better mouth and lip carvers.

[William]

This is a nice first cup of coffee topic, good yawning all.

For Realistic Carving

The mouth can be every bit as challenging as the eyes and sometimes more so because there are so many curves involved, especially in the corners where the lips come together.

I usually use pictures of marble sculpture's for reference, I like the marble because they do not have the distraction of color and you can concentrate on the shape.

Many art museums will have close up's or zoom photos of their art, also when a sculpture is offered for sale there may be many close up pictures provided.

The first picture is a close up of the Greek Slave by Hiram Powers and the second is a close up of my Diana. I find the corner of the mouth and the transition curves under the lower lip to be the most difficult.

Time for the second cup........

thanks for asking the question, I'm looking forward to seeing how other do it

Bill
^v^

[doris]

yes, a very good topic, we can get a good colection of reference images :-)

i do as bill, in looking carvings, marble or unpainted wood carvings, of masters i love and try learn from them how they dealt with mouths, ,,, and, when doing a specific carving, i use reference fotos of the mmouth i want carve in that pose, and try carve what i see... i cannot say i have a technique for carving mouths, as i treat them like everything else i want carve, a bunch of shapes, i want represent in wood,,, this approach lets me never think that mouths are difficult, though i agree with bill, there are lots of interesting transitions of shapes on a mouth , and one task is to decide which of all those shapes we see we need to carve to make the mouth look well for our purpose... the image i attach shows the 2 mouth of my ongoing project, they are finished, except that i will celan them up a bit, but the shapes i want are all there,,,and the mouth at bottom is the favourite one of all those i carved, despite it is relatively simple carved... oh, one thing i do with mouths always : i carve first all the outer shapes, and only indicate very vaguely the separation of the lips, and only when i feel the mouth sits at correct position and shapes are fine, then i cut the separation and shape the lips at the separation.the reason for that is, that this way, i can always push the mouth higher or lower on the face when i see i made a mistake...would i cut first the separation, the position of mouth is pretty much fixed,,,,

[Ashbys]

Bill,

Not sure there can be one style or technique used. Certainly not when your doing a persons portrait. All too many curves , butted joints that form and come together.

Consider ages , jaw line changes , cheeks full thin, mouth open , smiling , pouting , gender, race, large nose , small nose, thick lips , thin ,puffy . If your carving the real portrait the mouth can be one of the hardest parts to get it formed correctly.

And although I know that it is considered the lips go from the center of the eye to center of the eye, a great basic to work with in real life it is not always true.

So I guess it goes back to what ever is necessary.

Ash

[Ed Redwine]

Hi Millard: Good topic. I think a lot of us are drawn to faces with beards and mustaches because we can get by with just suggesting a mouth instead of getting into the delicate nuances of lip structure.
The few "hairless" subjects I've done have presented their own challenges. Jeff Phares books on facial features have always been a good help to me.
Ed

[Kenny_S]

Good subject Millard. I tend to use several different technique and usually never the same way. May Be that isn't the way to go but works for me. I don't have any close ups of just mouths but not carving realistic face I tend to try different ways. Sorry I couldn't be of much help for others.
Garry has some good points . Ages ot diplictions of how the face is formed, round narrow oval, square jawed, Man, woman, child, old, middle age, young what have you. I think to, that each face is a challenge. Anyway to me they are.

Thanks Millard for bring this topic to light.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Wow! Reading that thread title I momentarily thought I might be on the wrong site!!!! Fortunately, reading further my expectations settled down to where I might be able to contribute something to the discussion.

I use a mirror for my guide to getting the expression I'm after. Photos and drawings might help but their just pictures of photos and drawings not real mouths. If you want to see what a mouth looks like go to the source....THE MOUTH!

Getting the details or muscle structure right is as important in caricature carving as it is if you're doing something realistic. It's that structure that makes the overlaying skin do what it does. The same goes for any kid of facial or body detail.

[Kenny_S]

The only thing I find wrong with your post Lynn, Is, It is the same mouth every time you look in the mirror, no matter how you change the expression.
Not that that is bad, but I wonder if people wants a different variety of faces or mouths to try and carve. But The good thing is like you said, Go straight to the subject,The mouth. It is there in front of you for sure.

Good posting though.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Through the years people have always accused me of being "mouthy" so I put that talent to good use in developing my orbicularis oris muscle to the point that it can assume the shape of any desired form. Different faces, different ages, no problem! I'm a walking Plastic Man!!!

[Mottles]

Hey, great topic and thank you for starting this thread.
I'll set back and watch!
Kathy