John Davidson - Learn to Draw - Faces and Portraits - For the Absolute Beginner

Learn How to Draw

Faces and Portraits

For the Absolute Beginner

Adrian Sanqui and John Davidson

HOW TO LEARN

Book Series

JD- Biz Publishing

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission from JD-Biz Corp and at http://JD-Biz.com . Copyright 2013

All Images Licensed by Adrian Sanqui

Fotolia and 123RF

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Drawing Tools

Basic Head Layout

Facial Features

Measuring Via Eye Size

Front view

Quarter view

Side view/Profile

Drawing tools

Pencils

The most important tool you need to be able to enhance your drawing skill is a medium that can be corrected in case you make sloppy line strokes. It is better if you have pencils of different grades so you can have the kind of lightness or darkness you want to make. The H engraved near on the pencils tip (side of eraser) stand for hardness, it ranges from 2H to 9H. A pencil with only an H mark and doesnt have a number means 1H, the most common grade of a pencil (pencils without grade marks) is usually a 2H pencil. The B marking on the pencil stands for blackness, this means the pencil produces a darker marking and is softer than H pencils. It ranges from HB (hard and dark) to 9B (very soft and very dark), and this means the higher the grade, the softer and darker it becomes.

Mechanical pencil

A mechanical pencil has a consistent wick or point which makes it easier for you to maintain the thickness of the line marks you produce, instead of sharpening your pencil several times just to have a thin and constant fine point. Different grades of lead or graphite is also available for refilling your mechanical pencil, just makes sure that the size of the point your pencil has is also the same as the pencil leads you refill it with.

Sharpener

A regular sharpener is quite dependable if you are using H and low B pencils, but if you are going to use it to sharpen a pencil with very soft graphite cores, it may keep on breaking, most especially if you will use it for a charcoal lead pencil. A good substitute for regular sharpeners is a cutter, so you can easily control the pressure just enough to expose the core and make a fine point. Cutters are often used if you want a chisel point pencil that is very helpful for thick and thin linings.

Erasers

Having an eraser is essential if you are going to use a pencil for drawing. Choose a rubber eraser that is soft and not the ones that leave a faint color or worst is a scratch on the paper. Dont leave your eraser lying around on the table or just anywhere, keep it on a pencil case or anything that can protect it from being exposed to air for too long because some erasers (cheaper ones) harden when its left to dry out.

A kneadable eraser is very helpful for making highlights and reaching hardly accessible areas such as the gloss on the eyes or light portions of fingernails and such. It usually looks like a gray slab or a small bar of clay that can be molded or deformed to any shape you desire. It doesnt rub off the marking like usual erasers, but instead, it lifts off the graphite from the paper, like absorbing it. Instead of rubbing the eraser with a certain pressure to remove a marking, carefully dab on the portions you want to erase or decrease the applied graphite or charcoal, until you recover the brightness (whiteness of the paper) you want.

Smudge stick

A smudge stick is used for smearing the shades on the portions that are hard to access. Some artists dull down the other tip so it can be used for distributing the shades on the general areas. To avoid ruining the smudge stick, use a sand paper to make a blunter tip or to make it even pointier.

Basic head layout

There are few characteristics of a head that is relative to almost everyone, this similarity in measurements will be your guide if you are to construct a face when drawing a portrait.

Although you will surely encounter a person that has a little difference on these measurements, it would be easier for you to identify his or her unique proportion value if you have the knowledge about what is most usual.

The familiarity to different angles of the head is essential when drawing faces.

Head shapes differ in every angle. The position of each facial feature gradually changes as the head makes a quarter turn. And as it turns further on one side, their sizes slightly change and the features reveal their unseen angles, thus, totally changing their shape.

A head facing in a perfect front view would have two equal sides most of the time, while a head in a quarter angle view shows the outline of the nose bridge which cannot be portrayed perfectly when in front view. The lips would reveal its thickness as it loses the exposure of its further tip. And the further ear and eye will lose its exposure as the head turns further on the side.

These natural gradual adjustments happen when the head moves horizontally.

Unlike horizontal movements, when a head moves in a diagonal direction it changes the diagonal thickness of the head dynamically, thus, the facial features follow.

Each facial feature comes closer together as the head leans further. The nostrils become totally exposed as the nose ball clearly establish its distance from the plane (face surface).

The thickness of the lower lip can be easily conveyed as it overlaps the upper lip, and the eye shapes would appear flat.