Portraits

Since my last post was a compilation of portraits I though that today I might talk about how to draw them.

So here are a few advices about how to draw portraits.

There are are three basic stages in drawing portraits:

1.Using line drawing to get a feeling of shape,proportion and position of the face.

2.Using soft shading do mark dark spots and highlights in the drawing

3.Using larger areas of tone to unite all the aspects of the drawings


Drawing the basic features

This first step in drawing a portrait is the one where most artists make the greatest number of mistakes.When doing this it is important to have a light touch since you will probably make a lot of corrections to the drawing.

I myself begin a portrait with the eyes since they are the main focal point.The size and position of everything else is directly related to the placement of the eyes.

Drawing the outline

In this step we try to discover the size of the head by establishing the distances between the eyes and the top of the head and the eyes and the chin.A basic trick used by artists is to measure everything with the eyes.Lets say you want to measure the distance between the chin and the eyes,basically you take the size of the eye you drew and measure how many eyes there are between the two.

Building detail in line

This is the final step in line drawing.You just sketch a few details that will guide you when you start shading and adding texture,sketch some of the details in the hair,the folds on a T-shirt etc.The detail in the hair should be drawn quickly to give a natural rhythm to the hair.

Here is an example of a finished line drawing:

*I do not own any rights to this picture *