Daniel Stern - Learn to Draw Pencil Portraits: Step-by-step Pencil Drawing Techniques and Secrets for Beginners and Intermediate

LEARN TO DRAW PENCIL PORTRAITS
STEP-BY-STEP PENCIL DRAWING TECHNIQUES AND SECRETS FOR BEGINNERS AND INTERMEDIATES IN A FEW DAYS YOU WILL BE DRAWING LIKE A PROFESSIONAL!

DANIEL STERN

Copyright 2017 by Daniel Stern. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

IN THIS BOOK YOU WILL LEARN:

How to think like an artist why you are unique, and how and why you need to retrain your mind to unleash your potential to become a professional artist

The best materials to use Types of paper, pencils, erasers, blenders and so on.

Drawing and Shading Refining your lines; Breaking down nature into its basic fundamental shapes; How to depict tonal gradations in your art.

Important landmarks of the face. Subtle differences between male and female, old and young, among different races.

How to use a Proportional Sketch or Grid Sketch in your make-or-break initial layout.

Important tips to ensure an accurate resemblance of your subject in your pencil portraits.

How to create those extra touches to establish your style and ensure your portraits stand out!

My Dad, who introduced me to the Wonderful World of Fine Art.

And My Son, who had already introduced himself to Art before I could!

Hello! My name is Daniel Stern.

I've been handling a pencil for as long as I can remember...from watching my dad teach sketching and painting to his college students, to the still life drawing assignments he gave my brother and me every week (Thanks, Dad!)

Fast forward two decades later, and Im still holding a pencil (and sometimes a paintbrush). I hope in the following pages to transfer some of my skills and passion for drawing I have kept over the years, from my dad as well as numerous other mentors and books I have absorbed since then.

So you want to be an artist?

You want to be one of those people that goes around doodling on paper, or that brandishes paintbrushes looking for any surface even slightly resembling a canvas to paint on?

You have probably gotten used to the knowing glances, the expressions I always felt he/she was a little eccentric. Now this explains it! Or probably less frequently, Ooh...but what a lovely picture. You are really quite talented!

Of course, if you have been drawing or painting for any length of time (or just trying to learn) you would realize that the comments or views of people are not really what motivates you. But no, you are driven by the desire to improve your abilities, to become more skillful at reproducing the pictures you see in your head or in front of you...which is probably why you picked up this book.

Art is all about observation, you know. What makes you unique from 90% of the world (who are not so gifted) is your ability to note details that they would otherwise ignore. Normally, the supercomputers that are our brains work so fast at processing data that numerous tiny details at the fringe of our consciousness are either ignored or automatically processed while our minds speed on to their conclusions.

As a result, often when we begin our forays into art we carry a lot of preconceptions how round a face is supposed to be, how high the eyebrows should be, how to depict the eyes, etc.

Many of these preconceptions are inaccurate, however. If they were not, everyone would be a terrific artist! This is why many professional artists advocate you use references for your subject matter. Once your eyes do not have a reference material to pick details from, your mind goes into default mode and relies on its preconceptions built from memory.

Whether as an artist you are going to be rendering portraits, still life compositions, landscapes/seascapes, or even comics and other illustrations, your skill will develop in proportion to your ability to isolate and identify those little details: the quirk of an eyebrow, a double wrinkle line or distinctive pair of crows feet.

Your success will be measured by how faithfully you can reproduce your subject, and nowhere is this more painfully obvious however, than in portraiture. A wrongly placed eyebrow, improperly stretched eyeball, would be more than enough to make a completed portrait seem off. And for many of us with our first few score (or first few hundred) portraits this is caused by those miniscule details that we subconsciously tell ourselves do not really matter much anyway.

An example of a first portrait by my son David

However, worry not! These are steps on the path to greatness and professionalism that even the greatest artists had to take, so you are not alone. All you need to do is to keep honing your attention to detail keep training and retraining your mind not to ignore those tiny facts and keep assimilating and practicing the numerous techniques you learn along the way. Practice, practice!Before you know it, people would be remarking at your pencil portraits Wow. What a masterpiece. What great talent! and you would probably say to yourself If only they knew what it took to get here!

Get a sketchbook (well tell you more about the best ones available in the next chapter). Get a photograph of your favorite relative or celebrity and do your best portrait sketch on one page. Dont worry how nice it looks! This and several other sketches youll make of the same photograph will help you monitor your progress as you acquire new skills during the course of this book.

This section is all about the materials youre going to need to create that next great masterpiece. In order of importance, they are:

1. Paper

2. Pencils

3. Erasers

4. Ruler

5. Blending tool(s)

6. Grid paper

7. Stencils, etc.

There are several things you need to know about paper - its size, weight and grain or texture. While some of this information may already be familiar, it is always good to get a refresher. And if you have not heard any of this before, then prepare to be enlightened!

SIZES

Paper comes in numerous sizes. The commonest is A4 which is usually used for printers, etc. Letter size is similar, though slightly longer. Letter size is 8.5 inches wide by 11 inches wide; A4 size is measured in millimeters (210mm by 297mm). An easy way to remember them is in the diagram below:

Different paper sizes, A3 A6

Most computer programs like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator can show you the dimensions of the paper you want to use. Just click Ctrl-O (Cmd-O in a MacBook) and looking at the different dimensions in millimeters or inches. Most sketchbooks come in the size A3.

PAPER WEIGHTS

This refers to the thickness and substance of the paper. Quality artists paper comes in different weights, from 120gsm, 200gsm (grams per square meter), up to 300gsm and rarely above. The weightier the paper the costlier, but the less likely it would be to be eroded or scratched away by erasers or other abuse, and the more resistant to bending or warping.