[blockquote source=”Jack Kerouac”]Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.[/blockquote]
I’ll admit it: I’m the type of gal who buys her winky face emoticons wholesale and uses them liberally in her email messages.
And it’s not just me. The online world is full of people who embrace emoticons of all shapes and sizes to ring clarity to the intended emotions of their written statements.
But what are we to do when our smartphone batteries die, or our laptops are in the shop? What must we do when we look up into the night sky and see the stars winking down at us?
I’m a gal who winks back at the stars, so we’d draw our own winky faces, of course! Here’s how:
How to draw a Good Enough winky face
Three Tips
There are two different ways I’ll typically draw a wink: one is the curved line for the closed eye, and the other is the wedge angle for the closed eye. The curved line is a softer, more cheerful wink. The wedged angle is for a wink that is jauntier, more energetic, even cheeky. Pick your type of wink to go with the sentiment to be relayed.
The direction of the smile communicates a lot in your wink as well. In the first example, the upward curve of the smile goes towards the winking eye…almost as if that whole side of the face is pinching together in the wink. Having spent the last few minutes winking at myself, I can verify that the raised smile goes with winking eye. (And a thumbs-up pointy snap of the hand, but that’s a subject for a future tutorial!) The second example’s grin sweeps up towards the open eye. Try as I might, it’s pretty darn hard to do that in real life. So it doesn’t feel like a “natural” wink as drawn. This would be how I draw a used car salesman winking at us…off-sides smile to communicate something a little bit off or disingenuous about the person.
There are two different styles of open eyes here as well. The first one is a cartoony eye with large white and large iris, closed all around. The second eye is less cartoony, and stays open at the bottom. Even though our two winky faces are basically the same, the style of eye makes a tremendous contribution to their personalities. Play around with different eye styles and see which one resonates most with you!
And that’s it! What does YOUR winky face look like? Draw yours up, Tweet it out to @jeannelking #goodenough, and see who winks back!
Looking forward to seeing what you draw forth,
P.S. Want to have fun drawing AND inspire others to pick up the pen at the same time? Got something you wish you could draw, but you’re not sure how to approach it? [highlights color=”ffea00″]Tweet your drawing or idea to @jeannelking and tag it with #goodenough: it could be featured in an upcoming “how to draw Good Enough” blog post![/highlights]
