How to Draw Hair

Drawing is a hobby is that many people take up in their lifetime. It’s a great way to explore your artistic skill as your characters come to life. Through trial and error, you will learn many new techniques and methods that will help your drawing become more realistic. Drawing hair can be quite challenging, and it takes a lot of practice. Yet, each time you practice, the closer you will be to accomplishing this artistic feat. So grab your pencil and follow along.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hairstlyle magazine
• Paper
• Pencil
• Photo
• Smudge stick

1. Purchase good quality pencils that will let you work a variety of strokes and lines. Pencils that are great for the techniques you are learning here are 2H to 4B range. These will allow you to draw many different textures of hair.

2. A good drawing demands a high quality of paper that can take a lot of abuse such as smearing, smudging and erasing constantly. A good artist will erase several times and change the appearance of lines to depict the reality that he envisions.

3. Another great tip is to take a piece of paper and roll it up. This tool is how many artists smudge lines in their drawing. These beginning three steps are essential to creating a good drawing.

4. The next step includes finding a good photo of the hair that you want to draw. It should be easy to see the light and the dark colors of the hair. If these colors are not easily distinguished, then squint your eyes. It sounds strange but many artists swear by this trick.

5. Begin to draw blocks of hair on the head of your character. You should not worry about drawing every single strand of hair. Your pencil strokes and the shading will give the illusion of texture.

6. Do not ignore the action that you have your character doing. Your character’s hair movement is determined by this action. For example, think of the different directions if your character is standing in a park throwing a Frisbee or perhaps, surfing in the water. These two different activities will need two different movements in the hair.

7. If you are uncertain in the way that hair should look, look at different women’s magazines.

8. There are plenty of hairstyle magazines that will show you different hairstyles. Similar to a writer, you need to think of your character’s personality and her environment. Practice drawing many different hairstyles. It is easy to get stuck drawing one hairstyle.

Tips & Warnings

• Have fun drawing.
• Do not criticize your work.
• Make time each day to draw.
• The more you practice, the better you will be.

[culturalrider]

on 11/17/2008 Please include pictures in art tutorials.