Portrait demonstration

In this portrait demonstration the photograph is in a three quarter view and the portrait I am drawing

has been drawn darker so that you can see the lines more easily. Observe the photo on the left or if you are drawing from your own photo look at your subjects outline and draw an oval shape for the head, you don't need to be too accurate here the lines are only a guide.

Your subjects head is best drawn in a three quarter view (Photo above) this means that three quarters of the face from the right edge of the nose to the left edge of the left ear is nearest us. Light and shade is very important in a subject and here the light is illuminating the subject from above and from the left hand side.

Place your pencil on the photograph vertically and try and capture the tilt and angle of the head from the bridge of the nose (Center of the eyes) through to the middle part of the lips and chin and draw a faint line in to indicate this angle. Draw oval shapes for the bony shapes around the eyes (Eye sockets) starting from the eyebrow and around to the top part of the cheekbone, draw in another oval shape for the bottom of the nose and mouth. Why oval shapes you might ask, well all the features seem to fit nicely into oval shapes. Next holding your pencil horizontally try and capture the angle of the eyes working from both centre corners and draw a line in here. Holding the pencil diagonally this time try and capture the angle of the nose where it starts to protrude from the right eyebrow. It is all to do with angles so by putting the pencil on the photograph we can capture these angles and transfer them onto our paper.

Draw in small oval shapes for the actual eye shapes and once you have all these lines and angles in and are all correct everything else in your drawing should work around these lines and shapes. Draw in the eyebrows being very careful to follow their shapes, draw in the side of the nose and the nostril and roughly draw in the shapes of the lips. The bottom of the chin is next so make sure the form and shape of this is correct, then start to work on the hair, work all over the portrait keeping everything going at once. By the way you can see that in this portrait demonstration I wasn't quite accurate with the line I put in for the angle of the head but it was only a guide so we can alter this later. All these shapes and angles that I have drawn in are only guide lines, when drawing a portrait it is a build up of lines and tones, lines go over lines and tones go over tones so don't worry too much about accuracy at this point.

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