Step-by-Step Drawing Portraits

To truly become skilled at drawing portraits, one must draw them often -- preferably on a weekly basis.

Portrait drawing is particularly difficult even for artists. Being able to successfully draw a portrait takes years of practice and a great deal of skill with a pencil. To perfect your skills, draw people on a weekly or even daily basis. Present your drawings to friends and family and invite them to critique your work. Take suggestions seriously -- this will help you improve as an artist.

Things You'll Need

• Pencils (variety of hardness values)
• Paper
• Blending stump

Instructions

1. Choose a clear photograph of your subject. The photograph should be in focus and detailed.

2. Draw several studies of your subject.

3. Draw the basic structure of your subject lightly on the page. This is not intended to be an outline but rather, guidelines. For example, most faces may be represented with an upside down egg shape. The shape of the face you draw on the page should correspond to the shape of your subjects face. For example, if the subject has a rounder face than normal, draw a rounder face than normal. Use a 4H or harder pencil so that the lines may be easily erased or covered up later.

4. Draw an outline of the head over the shape you drew. The outline you draw now should include the shape of the hair, ears, sides of the face and neck.

5. Draw some of the details of the face like the eyes, nose and mouth. In order to line up the eyes, try drawing a line across the face where the eyes will be. The eyes should correspond to the line. Try to represent the nose with as few lines as possible, to prevent the nose from becoming a focus of the face. Generally a line beneath the nose and to one side or the other should be adequate. Avoid making "sketchy" marks -- your lines should be confident and unbroken. If you need to make broken, sketchy marks to find your way across the paper, draw very lightly at first, then draw darker marks over the light sketchy marks when you're certain where the marks should be.

6. Add smaller details to the face like eyelashes and eyebrows. Shade in some of the areas where shadows are necessary. Shadows should be drawn lightly at first, then darkened as necessary. Smooth the shadows using a blending stick. Note that often shadows that have been smoothed appear darker than shadows that have not been.

Tips & Warnings

• Throughout the process, look back and forth between the photograph and your drawing. Train yourself to draw exactly what you see, not what you think you see.

References

• Portrait-Artist.org: Drawing the Portrait
• Artyfactory.com: Pencil Portrait Drawing