Portrait Original

Portrait Original

The Best Way To Draw Portraits

I know numerous starting artists who wish to start from nothing and draw a portrait of a person they know or someone famous. Drawing excellent portraits is like the holy grail of sketching. Generating realistic and living portraits requires a top skill close to mastery. Thankfully you'll be able to learn these skills much easier, in case you learn them separately.

The initial step is mastering to draw the diverse features on the human face. By separating single features and sketching them separately you'll be able to learn faster. You will give full attention to practising one element at that time. And that means you improve your being familiar with and familiarity with the important points. Fill several sheets of paper with eyes, noses etc and you'll receive a feeling how they look and how to draw them. But dont draw too small. Two eyes, mouths or noses on one sheet (A4 or letter sized). That leaves you adequate space for details.

The next phase usually means assembling all you will have mastered when sketching the features one at that time. You should put the facial features in correct proportionalities, distances and layout so they fit together and the big picture makes sense. So is there a correct layout? Here are a few rules that will help you to put the features on the correct locations:

* The eyes are located midway between the top of the head and the chin. This is probably the most critical lessons to understand when sketching portraits. Many (me, too) usually put the eyes too high, and so the portrait gets a flat forehead. It looks like it's some optical illusion that makes us assume the eyes are placed higher than they are.

* Another problem with the eyes is their positioning towards the left and the correct. Between them there ought to be adequate space for exactly an additional eye. The same to the left and correct - between each eye and the edge of the face is plenty of space for an additional eye. Altogether a human face has adequate space for five eyes in a row (although this would look rather odd).

* As we're inserting a lot of eyes into one face, lets add two more. This time they help you to put the eyebrows where they belong. The distance between the eyebrows and the eyes is equal to the eyes height.

* Then the underside of the nose can be found midway between the eyes and the chin.

* Halfway between chin and nose is the mouth.

* The mouths corners are located below the middle of the eyes. But this will differ a good deal as there are many people with larger or less wide mouths.

* The ears top commences exactly where the eyebrows are and their bottom may line up with the bottom of the nose. But these measures will differ as individuals have lots of differently sized and formed ears.

Applying these rules you are going to be able to locate the facial features the right way. But always remember: these measures and locations are idealized! In reality these measures will fluctuate a little. That is what makes up the personality of the human face.

And that is what the main ability for portrait sketching is about. You must learn this 3 rd ability to draw portraits that look like the original model. Each human face has its personality and looks special. There's 2 causes of this:

* Initially the facial characteristics itself differ a little by shape, color or size (for instance large vs. narrow noses, thick vs. small lips, etc.).

* 2nd, the layout of the facial characteristics differs a little from the idealized measures I demonstrated you previously. The eyes can stand a bit less wide, the chin could possibly be stronger or weaker. Finally this changes the overall layout of the face and provides it with personality and originality.

The important thing for sketching resembling and live like portraits is to capture these slight variations and bring them to paper. This requires a lot exercise and a skilled eye. But the more portraits you draw the better you will definately get and the much more resembling your portraits will appear.

So what on earth think you're waiting for? Start sketching portraits!

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How good is this self portrait drawing? Drawn by a 13 year old girl.?

Original Photo:

http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn65/lil_monster1118/?action=view&current=16450_1257613650307_1528600531_6981.jpg

Drawing:

http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn65/lil_monster1118/?action=view&current=30718_1436268596569_1528600531_1108.jpg

The shapes are all right, but textures and shading need a lot of work. Hair looks best when drawn as light and dark areas, not a bunch of lines. Remember not to consider each part of your face as an 'eye,' for example, and to instead look at light and dark areas. (If you practice this way, your drawings may look like caricatures for a while but will be much more accurate and richer in the long run.)

For a thirteen-year-old, you have pretty good control over what you are drawing, and I'm sure with practice you can get much better! Drawing from life is always better practice than drawing from a photo!

Good luck!