Drawing Noses With Kids

I love art, and drawing used to be my forte. So watching my kids create and use artistic expression is one of my favorite things.

Z and SJ have always impressed me with their drawing skills, but I am their mother so I guess this should come as no surprise. Not to imply that I am completely biased no matter what they present me. Case in point- I noticed the kids kept drawing triangles for noses. I let it go and complimented them on their work for a long time, but eventually I saw all aspects of their drawings improve except for that dang triangular nose.

Unless you are drawing Phineas Flyn (whose name I just had to google) then there is no need to draw a triangle!

So one night I decided to dust off the old drawing skills and do a little lesson in noses. I sat all four kids down at the dining room table and showed them exhibit A:

This drawing of Mega Mind is great, but Mega Mind is not a jack o lantern.

Then with pencil and paper in hand, we began to practice. 

Step 1, draw the nostrils which look like commas that were flipped on their sides (or tadpoles for the younger kids who haven’t learned about commas yet).

Step 2 is to add the parenthesis around the nostrils.

Step 3 is to bring in the hook. This is the nose.

We don’t have flat noses and there are no lines on our noses.  What we are really trying to do is draw the shadows which would fall over a three dimensional surface. The hook can go to the left or the right, but to keep it realistic only do one or the other. One thing you can do to demonstrate this is have the child take a selfie on the phone with light coming in at an angle. Then allow the child to observe how their nose casts a shadow on their face.

Almost all of lines we see on our face are really just shadows. This realization will make your art work come to life!  

So there.

This isn’t award winning portrait drawing, but it is better than a triangle right?

Z did an excellent job.

I was really proud of SJ too.

Ezie looked down at his unidentifiable nostrils and said “Why don’t mine look like yours?”. I smiled at my precious little preschooler. I told him he was doing a great job and assured him if he kept practicing he would get it eventually.

A week later I stumbled upon this notebook paper.

I believe it is a drawing of a boy with some excessively large backward nostrils. Ezie had been practicing alright, but I was beginning to wonder if maybe I had placed too much emphasis on the nostrils. Who nose?