Transcripts
1. Introduction: People are my favorite subjects to paint, and they always have been ever since I was a young artist. There's just something so special and rewarding about portrait making. I'm Gabrielle Brookie. I'm an artist and teacher and today we're going to dive into drawing and painting the human portrait. I want to share with you all the little things I keep in the back of my head while creating a piece. You'll learn how to construct a head. The basic proportions of the face, and how to see rhythms we have in our faces that will help us create beautiful flowing images. You'll learn the important anatomical landmarks to look for on the face and how to break down each feature into basic, easy to draw forms. Will also talk about how we can simplify our portraits so that they'll read well close up, but also from a distance. I'll be using the procreate app on my iPad Pro with the Apple pencil for this, and I'll be sharing tips all along the way for using that. But really this class is for anyone who wants to develop their portrait drawing and painting skills, no matter the medium. When I'm painting portraits, I'm in my happy place. If you enjoy making portraits too, where if you want to learn more, jump into class and let's get started.
2. Materials: So if you'll be following along with me in Procreate, you'll want to download the Procreate app on your iPad or iPad Pro. I'll be using the Apple pencil to paint. If you don't have one of these, they're really awesome and I would highly recommend getting one if your iPad's compatible. In this class, I'll have almost all the brushes I'll be using available for you guys to download. You can find a link to those in the your project section under Class Resources. For portraits, I'll typically use a 5000 pixel canvas by 3500 pixel at 300 DPI. This is usually big enough for me to fit my reference and my portrait side-by-side. It results in a nice large file while not being so big that it causes lagging. If you want, you can label your canvas and then drag that pre-set up to the top so you'll always have it. Here's a look at my settings. If you'd like to match up with what I have. You can find your settings under the wrench icon and then prefs. There are more settings under gesture controls as well, and you can change those to suit your needs or leave them as they are. If you want to use Procreate for this course, but you're not yet familiar with the app, I would suggest first watching my previous Procreate class called Art Made Easy drawn paint with the iPad Pro. But if you're familiar with Procreate, you should feel comfortable jumping right into this course. As a note, this class is for the most part about drawing and painting the human portrait. So I think you'll find that the ideas carryover into any medium so whether you use pencils, oils, acrylics, Photoshop, et cetera, feel welcome to follow along and share your portrait work with the class.
3. Basic Forms and Proportions of the Head: There are many ways artists think about the head to help simplify it. Some like to start with the shape of an upside-down egg. An egg captures the round quality of the head, and you can start a drawing with something similar to this simple shape. I usually find this as a good start for female heads. The head can also be thought of like a block or a box. There's the front of the face, the two sides, the back of the head, the top of the head, and under the jaw. Thinking in corners can help you establish the heads location in space. The blocky egg combines both of these ideas. Combining the roundness of the egg shape with the blocky quality. You can also think of the head as a ball with a jaw. Often I'll start my drawings with this sort of shorthand. It does a good job of describing the roundness of the cranium and the angles of the face and jaw. Normally, the ball with jaw approach or the blocky egg approach is what I gravitate towards, but you can think of the head and many different ways. It will depend on what feels natural to you and also on the particular head you're drawing and what it leans towards. The goal of this is to get us thinking in 3-D, so all the way around the head. This will help us draw a portrait with structure. In this class, we'll be talking about the adult head. The proportions of a baby or a child head will be different as they're still growing. Overall, on a baby or a small child, the cranium will be bigger compared to their face. Andrew Loomis has really good diagrams if you'd like to go more in depth with that. But for now, let's go over the basic proportions you'll find on an adult and a straight on front view. If you want to practice with me, grab a piece of paper and a pencil or draw along and procreate. You can also use the practice worksheets provided in the class resources. Now the first step is going to be to draw a ball. If you're struggling with this, go ahead and practice drawing a ball over and over again. Eventually, you'll train your hand to be used to the motion and it'll be more natural to you. It doesn't have to be a perfect one line ball either, you can use many wrapping lines if you need to. After you've drawn your ball, add a jaw. Now this will vary from person to person, but on this first example, we'll be drawing a male. A male jaw will tend to be pretty angular. Draw two lines coming off the ball, going downward and slightly inward towards each other. Then draw two more lines turning even more inward and connect them with a line of the chin. Now we have the basic shape of the head from the top of the skull to the bottom of the chin. Add a straight horizontal line across the top of the skull, and then add another straight horizontal line at the bottom of the chin. If you take this measurement top to bottom and split it in half, you'll get where about the eye line will land in a frontal straight on view. If the person is looking up or down, this will change. But when it comes to understanding the spatial proportions without the effects of perspective, this is really useful to know. Now the face is bilaterally symmetrical, so let's add a vertical center line down the middle as we start to add on the features. We'll go much more in depth later, but try your best to draw two eye shapes on the eye line. You should be able to fit about another eye length in between and two more on either sides. Once you have the eyes placed, you'll usually be able to visually place the brows by observing your subject in the space between their eyelids and their brows. I'll place the line here a bit above the eye line and then place the brows. I also go ahead and erase the bottom half of the circle. Now from the brow line to the bottom of the chin, if we split that measurement in half, we get about the placement of the root of the nose or the bottom of the nose, where the nose meets the face. I put another horizontal line there and I add a nose shape. If you need a general guideline on the width of the nose, the inner corners of the eyes will usually line up with the edges of the wings of the nose. Now, with this new measurement from the brow line to the root of the nose, we can place the ears. Now going from the brow line upward using that same measurement, add another line. This will represent the top of the forehead. Now we have the basic thirds of the face. Top of the forehead to brow line, brow line to root of the nose, and the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin. On a face, you'll find that these distances when compared to each other, are more or less equal. Adding on the lips and chin, we can get another breakdown into thirds. If you break down the space from the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin into thirds, at the first third, you'll get about where the part of the lips will be, and at the second third, you'll get about where the chin plain begins to pump out. Now that the visual features are all in place, we can add a hairstyle. Keep in mind that the hair won't cling onto the top of the skull line directly. The hair will puff up a little higher on most hairstyles and a lot on some. Let's add a neck, so he isn't just a floating head. The neck will tend to be thicker on a male, and now you can erase your guidelines. These are the basic proportions of the head. You can fall back on these ideas if ever your proportions are looking off. Now let's go over the female head. Again, you can start by drawing a ball and adding a jaw. The jaw line on a female will be more rounded typically, although not always. For this one, I tried to keep that egg concept in mind. I drew the lines more smoothly and less squared off than I did before. A quick note about proportions, in this straight on view of the head, it's about a 2:3 ratio, so the face is longer than it is wide. As we did before, from the top of the skull to the bottom of the chin, split in half, is where we can place the eye line. Then again with a vertical line down the middle, we can split the head bilaterally to get those cross hairs. You can use the eye line to place the eyes and use the eyes to visually place the brow line and brows. I found that female brows will tend to have a bit more arch to them. Now erase the bottom of the circle, and then from the brow line to the bottom of the chin, split in half, is about where the root of the nose will be. We can also place the ears within that measurement from the brow line to the bottom of the nose. Using that same measurement, we can place the top of the forehead giving us the major thirds of the face. Again in that bottom third, from the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin, we can separate that section further into thirds. At the first third is the part of the lips, and at the second third is the chin. Then from there we can add on the hairstyle, again, remembering that it won't cling directly to the skull, unless of course, it's something like a super slick ponytail or a very short buzz cut. Then you can also add the neck, which will tend to be less thick than a male neck. These are the basic proportions in a front on view. As the head tilts up and down, things will change due to perspective, but these basics are great to have in your back pocket. Quickly reviewing the side view, we can see the proportions remain. The top third of the face is the forehead to brown line, the middle third is the brow line to the root of the nose, and the bottom third is the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin. Sectioning up that bottom third again, we can see the first third lands at the part of the lips, the second third around where the chin begins to bump back out, and the last third ends at the bottom of the chin. These are general measurements and can sway one way or the other. But this is truly helpful to practice through, especially if you struggle and can sometimes make things too long or too short. You can get away with other mistakes in drawing, but if the proportions are off and it wasn't a purposeful decision, it will show. Once you get the basic proportions of the face, they'll loge into your brain and you won't have to rely on diagrams. Check out the class resources if you'd like some more practice on this.
4. Gesture Drawing: Gesture drawing is when you quickly lay in the shapes, action and general characteristics of your subject. When I make a loose gesture drawing, my goal is to quickly capture the shape of the head, the tilt of the head, the contour of the person and some of the harmonious rhythms. We all have slightly different head shapes. From soft and round like an egg, to square, an angular like a block. Consider the shape characteristics of your subject's head as you begin to draw. Use the egg block, blocky egg or both the jaw ideas to help you get started. Then expand on those ideas by taking into consideration the uniqueness of your subjects have. We also want to establish the action of the head. What direction is the head tilting? Is the person's head tilted up, down or to the side? We can give the head direction with the help of a center line on the face and the line across the eyes. Imagine a line going down the center of the forehead, nose, mouth and chin and then simplified into one smooth arc. Then add a line across where the browse would go or across the eye line, whichever one is more comfortable for you. These cross hairs will give us information about the tilt of the head. You can add lines at the mouth and the bottom of the nose as well to start tracking those other features. Now let's talk about contour. What's your subject's simple, angled outline? If they had to fit inside an envelope, what would that envelope look like? Imagine, what's the envelope of their hairstyle. Capture this in a simplified shape in the gesture stage. Add on the cylindrical neck as well so you don't have a floating head. Imagine is if the person were ran it took her necklace. This can help you get that cylindrical form of the neck. You can also draw through the neck to get you thinking all the way around the form. In a gesture drawing, you'll also want to consider the rhythms of your subject. Look for swirls and stretching lines. Look for arcs in one direction that could keep going and pick up and another direction. Here are some that are commonly found in portraits. The figure eight rhythm from the forehead to the nuzzle, eyebrow to nose to eyebrow, cheekbone to the part of the lips to cheekbone. Depressions at the inner corners of the eyes, to the wings of the nostrils, shoulder to shoulder. Also from the front of the chest to the back of the neck and head and down the front of the face. There are lots of rhythms that can happen and you can decide which ones you want to play up in your composition. Draw through things to help you find connections. You can also use rhythm lines to 0.2 and enhance your focal point. Wavy hair is a great place to manipulate the curves to be more rhythmic and harmonious. Be sure to keep loops of hair balanced on either side of the composition. I find I can draw rhythmically when I let the pencil flow from my wrist versus drawing tightly with my hand. Rhythms can help to unify a peace, making it work better as a whole since things will have a feeling of connectedness. The great online tool for practicing gesture drawing is line of action.com. If you swipe up on your iPad, you can drag and drop safari so that you can multitask with both procreate and safari open. On line of action you can put in what you want to draw and it will bring up relevant pictures and change according to the time interval that you give. These quick poses will get you using your drawing instincts. They'll give you a lot of practice and a little bit of time. Here I'm thinking about that envelope right away, trying to consider her general contour with angled lines. Then I put in that push of the neck. The neck isn't straight up and down. It actually projects forward and you can really see that on her. Now I'm thinking about her hairstyle. Hairstyle can really help describe a person. Then as this gesture wraps up, I'm putting a line where the nose projects out so I can give myself an anchor point for the rest of the face. Switching to this one, I start with a ball because straight off the back I can feel that idea coming through. I add that center line down the face to capture the action off his face pointing off to the left. The arc of the line helps encourage that he's looking off to the side versus straight on. I add the contour of the hair and neck as well as his neck line and shoulders. Then I think about rhythm, like the rhythm from the depression of the inner corner of his eye to the wing of his nostril. Sometimes I'll indicate the eye sockets and a gesture with a few hatched lines. This can sometimes help to push them back into that socket plane. This one's not perfect at all, but it's a start and I can work from this and correct it as I go. Definitely check out line of action are calm or if you'd rather, I've also created a couple gesture worksheets for you. Don't put too much pressure on yourself with these. Set a timer and spend only one or two minutes on each. Just think shape, tilt, contour and rhythms.
5. Anatomy of the Head: Now we're going to run through some of the important anatomy to know for drawing portraits. Let's start with the important landmarks of the skull. Here we have the frontal bone of the cranium and it protrudes forward on some people like a round melon. Sometimes it works well to shade these areas here to show that coming forward. Now you can't really see the frontal eminences on this skull, but they're these two rounded forms that are like ping pong balls. You'll see this more often on women and children. The superciliary arches are much more obvious on this. They're right here and right here. They form this flying bird shape. In the middle here, you get what's called the glabella. From side to side, you get this brow ridge, which is a harmonious connection. Right here where the eyebrow would arc or end, you'll get the temporal line. This helps separate the side plane of the head from the front plane and top plane. Here we have the zygomatic arch and the zygomatic bone. It goes from here and comes around, changing plane direction into the maxilla, creating that front plane of the cheek structure. Now this here is the nasal bone. You can even pinch it on yourself. The nasal bone will determine a lot of the character of a nose. This is one of those bone structures that will get passed down through generations. Often in a portrait due to the angle, this will catch some light. Back here we have the mastoid process, which we'll find is important when we talk about the neck muscles in a bit. Here we have the eye sockets and they're deep, they have to protect the eyeballs. When you're drawing the eye area, remember that this eye socket plane pushes back. The mandible is also important for giving that unique jaw structure on a person. I also want you to take note of the roundness of the tooth cylinder. This will be particularly important as we start rendering areas around the mouth. Looking at the skeleton real quick, some important landmarks we'll also want to know are the top of the sternum here, particularly the jugular notch that dips down and also the clavicles. These bones are important to know since often when we draw portraits we'll include this part of the neckline. I personally don't think it's necessary to know every name of every muscle in the face. The knowledge can't hurt though if you'd like to go deeper in your studies. A deeper knowledge will be particularly helpful if you get into drawing more dramatic expressions. There are a few muscles that show up on the surface though. Let's go over those that you'll want to know for drawing. First, the masseter muscle. When you watch someone chew, you'll be able to see this muscle in action. Sometimes on a very manly portrait, it may work well to give this more attention. If you clench your teeth, you'll see this muscle better. Sometimes male models will even clench their jaws to make this more pronounced in photos. The masseter muscle attaches to the bottom of the zygomatic arch. You can also see the temporalis muscle moving when someone's chewing. If you look in a mirror and bite down, you'll see slight value shifts that happen here between the edge of your forehead and your temple. If you put your hand to your face and clench your teeth, you should be able to feel the movement of both your masseter muscle and your temporalis muscle. The sternocleidomastoid muscle on the neck is one of the most evident muscles you'll see. This muscle runs from the sternum and clavicle to behind the ear on that mastoid process we looked at earlier. The sternocleidomastoid muscle allows us to turn and nod our heads. At the sternum connection, the muscle is more chord like. While at the clavicular attachment, it's wider and flatter. From the front view, the two sternocleidomastoid muscles coming together look like a V-shape. There are more muscles in the neck, but this is the main one you'll want to know for drawing. Now let's talk about a couple of fat compartments in the face. See this convex form here that flows from the nose bridge to around the corners of the mouth. In this area, there are lots of muscles coming together. But there are also what are called nasolabial fat compartments and they attribute to some of that puffiness we see. There are also other fat compartments in the face that will become more evident with age. On a child or young adult, there's a fullness to the face still, so we don't really see the separations between the compartments. But with age, some of the fullness of the face goes away, so space between the compartments becomes more obvious. I'm usually painting younger people, so I find it's best to indicate these areas delicately. Rendering the form side-to-side versus along the length of it can help. Drawing the marks too dark can age your subject very quickly, so pay attention to the slight value changes. If you're interested in painting older subjects and I hope to do this a lot more myself, be mindful of the separations caused by age and study the other fat compartments to better understand what's going on. To practice, look at yourself in the mirror and see if you can start spotting some of these bones, muscles, and fat compartments and observe your friends and family members or people on TV too. Here I'm trying to find that frontal bone that protrudes forward in the edge of that temporal line. Here I'm trying to figure out where the nasal bone would be, as well as his nasolabial compartments. Here I'm seeing that sternocleidomastoid muscle really coming through on the neck. Here again, I'm checking out those nasolabial compartments. Here I'm observing where those frontal eminences show through and her superciliary arches. If you'd like to practice this, go ahead and grab this file from the class resources. Place a photo in the middle and draw on top of it to analyze the anatomy. Try your best to find some of these things. Sometimes the anatomy won't be clear and you'll have to do a little bit of guesswork, but give it your best effort. I think you'll find that what you discover will be worth the time when you start drawing.
6. Conceptualizations of the Head: There are lots of ways artists simplify the head to make the process of drawing it a bit easier. Now we're going to walk through what I consider to be the main three conceptualizations artists use in portrait making today. First, let's talk about a forms mentality for drawing the head. This is when you think about the head in terms of geometric solids. We've touched on this in the previous videos with the ideas of the egg and the block. With this thinking, we consider the head and all of its features in simple basic 3D forms. Here the frontal bone is something like a sphere. The forehead to eye socket form is like a tilted block. The eyeballs are spheres. The nose is like a wedging trapezoid. The tooth cylinder is a rounded form and the chin is like a squished sphere. These aren't the only forms you can think of. For example, taking the nose a bit further, the tip of the nose is like a ball or a sphere. Being able to break a head down into forms can help you when it comes to handling the shading and rendering. Some ways of thinking will work better on certain faces than others. But I'll demo how I would think about each way of thinking on this guy here. There's a certain amount of guesswork here. Not everything is obvious, but this can be a really useful way of considering the head. For this particular subject, I found this form mentality helpful when it came to seeing the roundness of his tooth cylinder. As well as seeing the wedge-shape of his nose. It also helped me see that stepped down from his upper cheekbone area to the side of the cheeks. The next way of thinking I want to share with you is thinking in terms of planes. This is really helpful for the artist who has the tendency to draw everything overly rounded. Thinking in planes will give you a very solid look. This is similar to the forms mentality only now we're thinking in terms of angles and clear cuts versus lots of rounded spherical forms. Thankfully, many artists before us have already broken down the head into planes. It's interesting now they're all slightly different though. Personally, I typically use Andrew Lewis's breakdown as a guide. Let's take a closer look at that one. Here we have the front plane of the forehead with two more planes angling off as we move to the edges of the forehead. Here we have the planes of the temple area. Here we have what's called the keystone shape. It's like an archway keystone. It's a plane that hangs off the brow line between the eyebrows. It's basically the location of the glabella on the skull. Here we have two eye socket planes which will often go into shadow. This plane represents the front plane of the nose. These are the two side planes of the bridge. These are the wings of the nostrils. Here the under planes of the nose. These are the planes above the mouth. The middle plane being the philtrim plane. These are the basic top lip planes which face downward. These are the bottom lip planes which face upward. These are the planes of the cheeks. Then from the zygomatic bone, we can make three lines to the edge of the masseter muscle, to the chin, and another pointing towards where the canine tooth would be. This helps to give us the plane changes around the jaw and cheeks. Under here, we get a plane just under the bottom lip. In many letting scenarios, this will go into shadow. Here we get the top plane of the chin. Here the bottom plane as it starts to turn under. Here we have the front plane of the neck and here two side planes as the neck begins to turn away. Here we get the side plane of the head about where the temporal line would be on the skull. But this isn't a cookie cutter. You'll have to consider each face as they come. Here on this guy, more obvious to me than probably anything on him are the planes of his forehead. I can see the center plane of the forehead here and then two more planes going off as the forehead changes direction slightly. This keystone shape where the glabella is, is about here. Then his nose breaks down pretty clearly into planes as well. So try drawing on top of photos to learn how you can break down a face into planes. Try to redraw some of these diagrams too, to really help you get these ideas in your head. Planes will guide you when it comes to painting the light and shadow. I talk more about the planes breakdown in my lighting class. If you'd like to learn more about this approach, be sure to check that out. Plane changes should be considered even when we don't see them in a photo. Making quick strokes across a plane can help emphasize a plane change from one plane to the next. Finally, let's take a look at the Reilly abstraction, aka the Reilly method. Frank J. Reilly was an artist and instructor who taught at the Art Students League of New York from the 1930s to the 1960s. He created this abstraction for students to help them simplify anatomy and the rhythmic connections in the face. This method continues to be passed down from teacher to student and many working artists use this as their go-to method for constructing a head. Let's break down what we're looking at here. Highlighted in blue, this line gives us the roundness of the head. It's also a rhythm line that connects the fleshy part of the cheek to the top of the head, around to the other cheek. These two lines basically show where the temporal lines would be. These lines work to rhythmically connect the sides of the eye sockets, along the edge of the temple and then along the temporal lines. These lines also help to separate the front and top of the head from the sides. Here we have the center line of the face, which works as a guide to help us keep the features bilaterally symmetrical. These two lines here are lines of relationship showing the connection from the corners of the eyes to the edge of the nose wings and through the front plane of the two cylinder and chin. The circle on the forehead represents the frontal bone and it overlaps the eye sockets to help get those shapes in there. This line here represents the brow ridge as it sweeps side-to-side. These lines represent the connection from the eye sockets as they swing down and connect to the bridge of the nose. This line gives us the width of the nose and connects to the bottom of the nose. While these lines give us the bottom of the nose and the nostrils. This one's a little complex, but starting at the top of the ear, you can swing a line hitting about the top of the zygomatic bone, swinging towards the edge of the nose. Then continuing down into the lips, swirling around the corner of the lips and moving into the top of the lips and repeating on the other side. This establishes the top of the ear, the top of the zygomatic bone, the front plane of the tooth cylinder, the corner of the lips, the top of the lips and the rhythmic connection between at all. This line here goes from the inner helix of the ear, passing through the zygomatic, where the bone makes that plane change from top to side. Often you'll see a color change there. Then that line flows into the jaw. This large oval represents the muscles here and those nasal labial fat compartments we talked about earlier. It starts at the bridge of the nose, working around the face and through the other side. This smaller oval goes from the top of the wings of the nostrils to the edge of the mouth through the chin and connects to the other side. This will help you get that roundness of the tooth cylinder. You can use the laugh lines on a person as a guide for this one. The squished oval represents the chin mound. This and the tooth cylinder oval can squish together on a face. Finally, these two circles represent the eyeballs. This thing is complicated to look at, and he isn't the most attractive guy in the world. But if you draw this out a lot of times, these things will start making sense to you and maybe it'll become your go-to method for constructing the head. Not everything's visible here, but we can make our best guesses with our knowledge of anatomy. The Reilly method really helps you find connections. You make sure if you find something on one side, you can find it on the other side. When I was studying these ideas, sometimes I would struggle to find the exact placement of things. I think it's important to know that you won't see everything on every face. Also, the spacing and sizing of things will be different from face-to-face. For example, with the Reilly diagram, the forehead is very large. Sometimes I do see this, particularly it's clear on older men, but sometimes I don't see it at all. Sometimes it's a lot more subtle. The point I'm trying to make here is, use these ideas as long as they're helpful for you. Rather than trying to fit a person into a specific diagram, make the diagram or combination of diagrams work for you. Some of this is more obvious in real life than in photos. I've also found that when I'm watching TV, I'm able to practice seeing some of this stuff. So give that a go to. Now personally, in my process, I like to combine ideas from these three conceptualizations where they're useful to me with the face and drawing. On him I find that, thinking of his forehead and planes helps me the most. I find that thinking of his nose as a simple wedge is the most helpful for me. Around his mouth. I'm finding the Reilly abstraction to be helpful. So I'm using that there. In my workflow, sometimes I won't even draw over the reference. But rather, mentally think of these ideas. These conceptualizations will help you paint a head with solid structure rather than simply copying what you see, use your knowledge plus your copying skills to make a great portrait. There are practice worksheets in the class resources to help you understand these ideas better. Be sure to download those. You may also like using the symmetry tool on Procreate as you practice these ideas.
7. The Features: Now let's talk about probably everyone's favorite part of the portrait, the features of the face. In this video, we'll cover eyes, noses, and lips. I'll be demoing each of these features separately so that we can really study them. But when it comes to drawing the full portrait, I prefer to develop everything together and bringing it up all at the same time. Personally, instead of working feature by feature, I'd like to bounce around the portrait, so I'm always working on the whole rather than piece by piece. But use whatever process works best for you. As we talked about in the proportions video, the eyes are about in the middle of the head. To help find the exact placement of the eyes, you can use measurements from your reference. What I usually do first though, is draw the general shape of the eye sockets. This helps me place the eye sockets with a big shape since getting this general eye socket shape isn't quite as scary as getting the exact eye shape. If you need to on your reference, you can paint out the eyes, you're not distracted by them. You have to prepare the structure around the eye before adding little details. Painting the eyes out your reference can help you develop the socket area before putting in the details of the eye. Once you have an atone for the eye sockets, you can begin to place the eyes with the help of a rhythm line like this one, from lash line to lash line. This will help you find the arc of the two eyes and will also help you get that symmetry between them. You'll also want to consider these forms around the eyes. The area here where the brow bone has a convexity and near the inner eye where it's more concave. The roundness of the eyeball is essential to get so that the eyes don't look like they're simply pasted on. Consider these spherical forms. The eyelids will then fold over and conform to that ball form. Now let's go over the basic anatomy of the eye. The color part of the eye is called the iris. The dark middle is the pupil, and the sclera, the later portion around the eye, is often referred to as the white of the eyes. They're actually not pure white though. The color will change according to the lighting conditions, so keep this in mind when you're deciding on colors. Then we have the upper lid, which is often more angular than the less angular lower lid. You'll find the upper lid tends to cover the iris more than the lower lid will, and most poses. Also the upper lid will cast a shadow onto the eyeball. Then in the inner corner of the eye, we have the tear duct, which I usually find is best when rendered simply. Now let's talk about the details. The eyeball is wet, so the wetness will catch a little light sometimes along the lower lid. When drawing the lashes, look for groups of hairs that form triangular V-shapes. Often you'll see lashes grouped up like this in addition to some of those single curb tears. You'll also sometimes see this switch and direction. On the outer corner, the eyelashes are flicking to the right, but then towards the very inner eye, some of them flicked left. The brow shape is the first essential thing you want to get. Once you have the angles down in the shade filled in, then you can move on to drawing individual hairs. The inner hairs flick upwards and then they began to fall over as you go along the body of the brow. Once out about the apex of the brow, the hairs begin to grow inward from both directions. The hairs at the start of the brow will tend to be thicker than the thinner outer hairs. Irises are round circle shapes when you're looking straight out them. But then they become elliptical in shape as they move away. Male and female eyes will have their slight differences. Male eyes will tend to have a more angular shape, while females tend to be more round. Men's eyes can be smaller in size, while women's can be bigger. The lashes are most often less dramatic on men, while lashes on females are often dramatize with mascara. Male brows tend to be a bit lower and less arched than females, which tend to be higher and more arched. Of course, all of these are generalities though, and the opposite can happen too. Eye is a very much determined expression, so make sure you have that upper lid place where you want it. Too much sclera and iris covered will result in a tired look, but too much sclera showing will result in a shocked look, so be conscious of how you draw that upper lid. Also, eyebrows are incredibly expressive, so if the expression looks off, checkout the eyebrows, did you arch them a little bit too much? Or maybe the angles are slightly off? The slightest little change can make the biggest difference when it comes to expression, so be sure to check out the brows and the eye lids. The lid variety will give you different looks to reflect the different races. Take a look at the exact shape of their eyelid to capture their uniqueness. I'm going to walk you through my process of both painting and drawing eyes. To start with painting, the first thing I do, is lay in the basic values around the eyes. Then I add the eye socket shapes. They're almost like the shape of sunglasses. Next I add the shapes of value between the brows and the eyes and I start to put in a couple dark accents to begin to start anchoring these eyes into place. Now I believe I'm ready for the general irish shapes, so I go ahead and put that in. Then I smudge with the soft pastel brush in the smudge tool. As I look at my reference image more and more, I become more familiar with it, so I began to put in the shapes of the upper lash lines more accurately as well as the brows. Next, I do lots of looks back and forth between my reference and my painting and I make the proportional adjustments that my eyes are telling I need. I lower the eyes a little bit, allowing more space for the lids. I also consider the fullness of both the top and bottom lids and how with each plane change on the lids there's a slight color change. Again, I smooth out with the soft pastel smudge brush. For whatever reason, the soft pastel smudge brush really helps to unify and also makes the eyes begin to look more real. Feeling pretty confident with the placement of things, I feel ready to add the little light highlights in the eyes. This will help give that wet eye look. I also added the pupils as well with a soft application. I noticed the proportions of the eyes are slightly off, so I duplicate my entire painting and I lasso the eyes and move them. Duplicating my painting makes it so that the skin will show through from the previous painting layer below. Once I'm happy, I merge the painting down to be one again. Finally, I add details to the brows and eyelashes and add some hair on the side as well. I also smooth out a couple value transitions on our lids. I'm going to call this one finished. Here's the entire time-lapse for you to see. I find the shapes of color and value, refining the edge as I go. You'll notice in this that the reference picture becomes blurry for some of the time. I like doing this because it helps me see the big picture rather than the details. You can duplicate your reference layer and do this on a duplicate. Just go to Adjustments, Gaussian Blur, and Slide your pointer finger to the right to blur the image. Then adjust the opacity of the images you need to, to be more blurry or less blurry. I also use my custom freckled brush for this, which is included in the class download, if you'd like to try it. You can choose to keep the eyes really simple or you can make them really detailed. Do what works best for your style and your piece. A little can go along way though, so don't feel like you need to bring it to full realism. Now I want to show you how I would start if I were drawing first and then adding colors after. I first look at the shape, contours, and spacing. Here I simplify the brows and the triangular shapes. Once I have the sketch in place and in the proper proportion, I go in with the big tones. Then I continue working as I did in my painting demo, trying to place the colors and proper relationship in manipulating the edges. With eyes that are from different angles, try your best with their proportions. But when in doubt, measure. Measure the distance between things and constantly be making comparisons. You can put little lines on a new layer to figure out your measurements. Again, remember as the eyes look away from the camera, they'll become more elliptical in shape versus perfect circles. Drawing eyes will take some practice. So I've added some references that you can draw from and the class resources if you'd like to get some of that practice timing. Eye studies can be really rewarding though, so have a lot of fun of these. Noses come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but the basic structure and anatomy are the same. From the keystone shape, the nose projects out. In it's most simple planes, It's like a blocky wedge, almost like a gold bar. Only it gets wider as it goes down. The simple planes are a front plane to side planes and the bottom plane. As you develop the nose, you can break the planes down further and further until it looks more like a nose. Studying the major and minor planes and more detail can help when it comes to capturing all the little value changes that will happen. These will vary from lighting situation to lighting situation. So I can't cover them all here. But every plane change on the nose will mean a color change, whether subtle or dramatic. As I mentioned, you'll notice that the tip of the nose can look like a ball. So final rendering will therefore be similar to that of a ball. On a ball, the transition from light to shade is more gradual than on a block or cylinder where the light and shade values change a bit more suddenly. This is similar to the light and shade on the ball of the nose, compared to the more angular bridge of the nose, the light falls off quicker on the bridge. Let's go over some basic anatomy of the nose now so we can better understand what's going on under there. The nasal bone, like we saw on the scholar earlier, projects off from below the goal Bella, on some noses the nasal bone can come out quite dramatically, creating a bump here. The lateral cartilage will then usually start at the furthest point out on the nose. To me, it looks almost like a stingray from the front view. The bottom of the lateral cartilage lodges between the Alar cartilage. On some people, you'll be able to see the separation between the two pieces of Alar cartilage. It will create a sort of indent in the middle of their nose. On other people, the Alar cartilage will look smooth though on the surface like a round ball. Then here we have the wings of the nostrils which can move in flair. Knowing basic anatomy can help in understanding all the bumps you may see. Typically, I will refer to the parts of the nose like this though. Now let's go over some of the surface details you'll see on the nose. Since this is a smaller feature, you'll often see that it's a little bit redder than the other parts of the skin on the face. Many lighting conditions, you'll see an exclamation point shaped highlight from the bridge of the nose to the bowl of the nose. You'll also often see that freckles will accumulate here. Now I want to share what my general process for painting the nose looks like. When I'm painting, I go right into shapes of value, rather than starting with thin lines. I squint my eyes down at my reference to help me better see the broad value statement. Once I have the basic values in place, I do a proportions check. I see that I drew the nose too small. With the lasso tool, I select it and make it bigger. Once the values, colors and proportions are in a good place, I use my soft pastel brush with the smudge tool to blend and smooth everything out. Then I go in and redefine starting with the nostrils and then moving to that little plane change here on the nose in the brighter highlights at the tip of the nose. Now I'm just finishing this up using a little bit of that anatomy information. I didn't want to paint every pore, just a simplified version of what I'm seeing. Now I'll demo when I start with a sketch first. I make my sketch on a separate layer, I think in angles, constantly looking back and forth between the reference in my drawing. Really get in the habit of flicking your eyes back and forth versus fixating on one only your drawing. This will really help you with accuracy. If it helps, you can think back to that envelope idea. What kind of envelope, would I need to fit this nose perfectly into it. That'll help you capture the contour of the nose. I also like to use many lines to describe one curve or angle when I draw. I find this is easier than working slowly with one steady line. More often than not, it ends up not steady at all and also inaccurate for me when I draw that way. I let myself get sketchy as I find my way and as I become more confident and make a more refined line. On this middle one, since I'm drawing, I don't go into painting shapes too soon. Instead, I use quick lens close together to describe the darker shadow shapes. I tried to find the plane change from the top of the nostril to the nostril wind plane as it turns under. On this nose I try to consider the bump of the nasal bone to the lateral cartilage. Even though it's not super clear on the reference. I over-exaggerate that for a bit for now. I head back over to this one because I want to indicate those eye sockets pushing back. I do that with some hatched lines. Changing the directions, the lines flow on the plane can help your viewer understand that the plane direction is changing without even much help from value contrast. Working on this one, I try to capture that hump where the nasal bone and lateral cartilage meet. On this one, I like how, we can see that there's a little indent on the ball of her nose, almost making it look like a little heart-shaped. I do my best to try to capture that uniqueness of her Alar cartilage. Now soon after I finish my sketches, it becomes more of a painting process and procreate, putting in those big masses of color. What's nice about this drawing start though, is you have everything all in place. There Isn't quite as much fishing around in the middle of the portrait making process for the correct proportions. When I use this approach, I just add another layer under my sketch layer and start filling in colors. Then once I feel I'm ready, I'll merge both the sketch and color layers together and I'll continue to work on top of that. I think it gives a slightly different look in the end. If you like something more painterly, start with shapes, but if you like something more defined, start with line. Finishing these off, I'm just trying to consider the color and value changes that happen from plane to plane and then unifying it all with some art work using the soft pastel smudge tool. So just like everything else, the variety on the lips is endless, but the basic shapes and anatomy are the same. As we talked about the tooth cylinder and teeth arc and how to round this to them. So always keep that in mind, especially when you're drawing a three-quarter view, and you can't see that opposite side. You 'll have to feel the other side. I still struggle with this myself and I just have to work at that a bit harder. We want to consider the forms around the lips before painting the lips. The form mentality will help you paint that rounded mound that the lips are placed on. On some folks the form around here will be more like a W-shape. So be attentive and look for that uniqueness. It can also help to think about wrapping contour lines or a wireframing around the lips and surrounding area. This can give a look of fullness. Thinking in terms of planes will help us too. I love how the planes around the mouth are represented here by John Van Der Pol connecting through the philtrum, the front planes of the lips and chin to the corners of the chin. This does a good job of distinguishing where the front plane is and where the side planes start to angle. Now this is creepy looking, but hopefully it will remind you to consider the plane changes. Sometimes my paintings will remain in the stage without a mouth for a while, because I know we first have to consider the forms around the mouth before putting the lips on. Now let's talk about the lips themselves. The lips can be broken down like this. Three shapes on top and two on the bottom. These ones are almost triangular in shape. The middle piece looks something like a heart. The bottom can be broken down into two pillow each tear drop shapes. Usually the top lip will be more angular and the bottom lip will be rounder. The bottom lip will also tend to be a bit bigger compared to the top, although the opposite can occur. On some lips the middle portion here will dip down, while on others it will go up. Here we have what's called the philtrum. Sometimes it'll catch a little light. You'll also see around the angles of the top lip, there's this little ridge there that catches some light too. Usually the values here will be a little lighter than the surrounding skin. The nodes are also an important thing to note. There are bean-shaped fullness at the corners of the lips, and they'll help to soften the corners of the lips in a painting. When painting, you'll also notice that often the edge transition between the values here are soft. So know that you don't have to define the entire edge of the bottom left. There's also a rhythmic connection that happens between the cheeks and the part of the lips, which can help you in placing them. A quick note about teeth. If you draw teeth and a smile, don't draw every line between them. Instead, draw the shape of the gums and the dark shapes below the top row teeth, particularly around the pointy canine teeth, then the teeth will appear and just enough detail. When working in a side view, it may be helpful to think about the planes of the lips and chin, a stair steps in out-in, out-in, out-in pattern, but be alert to variations. Now I want to share with you my general process for painting lips. First on this one, I block in the shapes of color. Then I go right in thinking about the corners of the mouth in the plane under the lips. Then I begin to block in the shapes of the lips. Before I get too far though, I consider what's around the lips. I tried to get in that round form that the lips sit on top of, using the direction of some of my lines to help encourage that. Once I feel good about the values, colors, and placement of everything, I go in and smooth out with the smudge tool using the soft pesto brush. When I feel the forms are looking good, I add on the sparkly detail highlights. Here in this example, I laid down some of the skin colors and blend, and then I go into a sketchy drawing, placing the corners of the lips, a line between them, and then the general shape of the upper and lower lips. I refine the shape and then add the darker portions around the skin, in the dip of the philtrum and under the bottom lip. I add the lighter portions of the scan on the bottom, left and right of the lips as well. To get that settled W form in there. Then I use the smudge tool to blend the edges and soften the whole thing. Using a soft brush, I push the part of the lips deeper into the shadows. Then I add some highlights with the 6B pencil, putting the pencil on its side to get a sharp edge streak. Now I'm adjusting colors, making the color more saturated in some places to capture that nice vivid pinky red. If you want, you can add a Color Dodge layer and really get some nice vivid colors. To finish this one up, I'm just putting in those lighter values on the creases of the lips and darkening my shadows. Now for these few more demos, I'll show how I would start with line work. On a profile, I find it's helpful to look at the entire slope of the angle from the root of the nose to the chin, and that's what I'm doing here. I'm just sketching it out as best I can, but if I make mistakes, I know I can erase and try again and also use the lasso tool or liquefy tool and procreate. Learning how to draw is an essential skill though. So I hope to be sharing a class on drawing soon. We want to use a balance of copying skills and knowledge of our subject women draw. So I'm trying to do that here. Putting that shadow shape below the bottom lip always helps me anchor the lips, so I do that here. Then I decided these sketches could be stronger. So I started over. It's easy to hold on tight to a sketch, I know, but if it's not right, it's better to change it from the beginning, then get to the middle of your painting process and feel like you're stuck with a bad sketch. Sometimes you can sketch better the second time around anyway, since you've already done it once. So don't be afraid to start over sometimes if you don't like your initial drawing. I think on the second pass, I saw these lips a bit more clearly. I'm using my willow charcoal brush now. I like this one because it has some texture to it while still being really soft. I use this one a lot for sketching. With these lips, I used curved wrapping lines to help show the roundness of that upper lip. Now that my sketches are finished, I add a layer underneath and add base colors. The nice thing about sketching first is; a lot of the hard proportional work is done by the time you get to painting. After base colors go on, I add smaller value shifts and use the soft pastels smudge brush to blend. I don't copy every detail, but you can take this as far as you want. Continuing on in the same manner, just working into smaller and smaller shapes.
8. The Features Continued: In this video, we'll cover the rest of the features in a portrait. The ears, forehead, cheeks, jaw, chin, neck, and hair. The ear is located at the back of the jaw on a slight angle. In a straight on view, we know that they fall in the center third of the face. But when a person looks up or down, this changes. When we look up, the ears come down in relationship to the nose. When we look down, the ears go up and relationship to the nose. Ears can look complex, but once you memorize the shapes, it'll become much easier to paint them. Let's take a look at the anatomy. The spiraling rim around the edge of the ear is called the helix. This is the part of the ear that will relate to those rhythm lines we talked about earlier on the Riley abstraction. Then we have the antihelix, which is this Y-shaped form here. The antihelix has two legs. The lower one which is sharper, and the other one which is rounder and softer. The depression between these two, is called the triangular fossa and can be indicated with a darker value shape. Then we have the concha, which is dark in value as its bowl-shaped and leads into our inner ear. Then we have the tragus, antitragus, and notch. All little curves situated around the concha. Finally, we have the lobe, which can either attached to the face directly, dangle down, or do something in-between. Take a picture of your own ear and see if you can spot some of these things. Here's some practical tips for drawing and painting ears. The ear is generally C-shaped, but if you want accuracy, draw the angles of the ear. The concha lands in the middle third of the ear. If you need help placing all the little details of the air, you can start with that. Oftentimes, all you really need to do, is paint the negative shapes and the ear will appear, like when we were talking about painting teeth. Sometimes simply painting the shapes around the shape you're painting, will give you all the detail you need. You can use wrapping lines to show form. You could even literally draw your lines in this direction. I don't know why, but this just works. If you're going for a detailed portrait, it may be helpful to know that the helix thickness can vary as you move along it. Finally, when you forget the anatomy, just think question mark and why. Thinking of these symbols may jog your memory for how the anatomical shapes look. Tune into variations in the size of the ears. Everyone's ears are different, but keeping in mind the basics, always helps. Now I'll show a couple demos. The first thing I do, is map out the general shape with some sketchy lines. I get the C-shaped, the width of the helix, and then begin just put it in those negative shapes. My thoughts on the ears are usually, don't let them steal the show. I keep my approach pretty simple most of the time. Because there's a lot of intricate details on the air and also a lot of contrast, I usually find if I give it too much detail, it can quickly become a focal point. Most often, I want the focal point of my piece to be the face. Sometimes, I'll make the ears a little softer and a little less detailed than they are in the picture. For the second one, I start with the angles of the helix, and I use the lasso tool to adjust the proportions. Then I go right in with those dark negative shapes. If you're having trouble seeing values, squint your eyes at your reference picture, and you'll see the dark negative shapes pop out more obviously. Once the basic colors are in place and manipulate the edges with the salt pastel smudge brush, softening edges that need to be softened, and keeping other areas like the bottom leg of the antihelix crisp. Now I take this one a bit further just for the sake of the demo. But you can stop as soon as you can tell it's an ear, I think. Now on this one, I'm setting up my sketch with the help of looking at angles. I'm really trying to get the proper tilt to it. Then I'm just indicating the negative shapes with some hatched lines. On this one, we can see the bump of the tragus a bit more, so I'm trying to grab onto that shape. Then on a layer below the sketch layer, I add the base colors. Not going to letter too dark, but picking the average colors from each part of the ear. That will leave room to build up to bright highlights and dark shadows. Once all the colors are in place, again, it's time to manipulate the edges, softening some areas and crisping up others. You'll notice for a lot of this, I have the reference image blurred a bit. This really helps me think in shapes, values, colors, and edges, rather than getting caught up on details. Between the edge on the top of the ear and the dark hair, I wanted to soften this, but I didn't want to only soften with the smudge tool technique. Instead, I picked a value that would fall between those two colors and I went around the edge of the year with that. This is another fun way to solve in a transition between values. Pick a midtone that would fall between them. You can also add a little glow to the ears with a big soft brush. I found that this gives a nice glowing haziness around the ears, which you can sometimes see in real life. On this last ear, you'll notice how the antihelix, that Y-shaped bumps out the furthest on the year. This can sometimes happen in a front view on some ears, so look out for that. Like on the nose, sometimes the ears can get a little redder than the surrounding scan. Keep this in mind. Sometimes this can help to add a little life to your piece. Now moving onto the forehead, thinking in terms of forms, we can really see that block-like quality of the forehead. At about the end of the eyebrow and sometimes at the arc of the eyebrow, we can see the temporal line helps turn us from front to side. On some people you can see this edge quite clearly. Also thinking in terms of forums, we really get an idea for that melon shaped roundness of the frontal bone. Breaking down the forehead into planes, can help you achieve that simple yet solid look. When we consider the Riley method, we can really see the rhythmic connections found in the forehead. Taking a look at the anatomy of the forehead, sometimes you'll see those ping-pong shaped frontal eminence show through. Oftentimes you'll see the super ciliary arches and glabella, which together form this flying bird shape. Some lighting angles will show this anatomy better than others. Men's foreheads, will tend to angle back more, while women's will tend to angle back less. Sometimes the forehead anatomy and shapes will be really obvious, and other times things will be really smoothed out. Be observant and try to spot some of these things when you're looking at people. It's fun when you start to see all the different types of foreheads out there. I found that studying the zygomatic bone helped me in understanding the area of the cheeks better. Try to find the zygomatic bone on your subject if you can or try to feel it on your own face to understand where it falls better. Also studying the planes helped me a lot. From about the furthest point out on the zygomatic bone, the surrounding plains changed direction. It also helps me to think about the shelf of the cheekbones when I'm painting value changes. Moving into the jaw area, finding this plane helps me. The one that starts at that point on the zygomatic and moves to the chin. When drawing the jaw area, it helps me to simplify curves into straight lines first, then smooth it out later. This can help you capture the uniqueness of someone's jaw line versus drawing something more generic. Another important plane I want to note is the digastric plane, which can be seen as a v-shape from the side view and under view of your subject. I found that this area takes some careful rendering as you softly transition the values from light to dark. Often I'll use a soft brush for this transition from the jaw to the digastric plane. The chin is shaped like an ellipse. The form is like a squished ball. The rendering is therefore similar. Some chins will be more pointed, others round and other square, some will be smooth and others will have a dimple. In many lighting situations, a cast shadow from the lips will show up on the chin, especially in a direct lighting scenario like this one. This will result in a crisp edge cast shadow here. The form shadow of the chin will have a softer edge quality in comparison. If you'd like to learn more about lighting, checkout my class. Understanding light better will only help you in your portrait work. Personally, I keep chins quite simple and soft. I just think about the plane changes around the chin as it goes in and out of the light. The form of the neck is that of a cylinder that projects forward. If you can draw a cylinder with light and shade that you're on your way to drawing necks. Once you have the form down, then you can consider the anatomy of the neck. Here we can see this model's sternocleidomastoid muscle. Here's where it attaches to the juggler and notch of sternum. You can see how the muscle here is smaller and more cord like. Here we can see the part of her sternocleidomastoid that connects to her clavicle bones. These are wider and flatter. This muscle also has a form though, so consider how the lines would wrap around the form to help you paint it. Sometimes I'll even physically draw around the form to try and get that wrapping feeling. When it comes to the difference in necks between males and females, often on a man the trapezius muscle will be more convex while on a woman it can appear more concave. The neck will also be more slender on a woman. I found that all men, the clavicles tend to go more straight across while on females they can bow more, but the opposite happens to. Also, you'll see the Adam's apple on men. You may find that elongating the neck can help give a more elegant look, while shortening or thickening the neck will give a more manly look. When I'm painting on a neck, it helps me to squint down at my reference to help me remember what's most important to capture. Now, let's talk about hair. A feature that's so unique from person to person. The number one best tip I can give when it comes to painting hair, is to forget about individual hairs. Don't approach it with stringy lines, but think in big value masses. Here's my typical approach. First, start with a contour drawing, sketching the basic outline to capture the shape and character of the hairstyle. Then you find the big value shapes to establish the lighting statement. The middle stage is about refining those shapes and pushing your colors and edges. Then put in the smaller shapes of value, those light and dark accent shapes. Squint down at your reference to see how you can simplify them. Often the darkest ones will be around the neck. Finally, depending on the level of detail you're going for, go in and add straight hairs and flyways, or if you want to keep it simple. If you want to add lots of hair detail strands, that's a totally valid style decision. Just make sure it's on top of a very solid value structure. You can use this process regardless of hairstyle, whether it's long, curly, textured, short. First, think about the contour, then think of the basic value changes. Oftentimes we want to jump past these first steps right into texture, but a solid value structure is way more important. Even with facial hair, don't think about individual hairs, but think about the entire mass together. Then add the big light and shadow shapes of color. At the end, add those individual stray hairs or texture as you need it. Let's talk about other ways we can get out of the strand mentality. Try breaking the hair down into planes, breakdown curves into angles to capture a readable lighting statement. Look for specific angles to the hair and skull. Don't just plop on around shape. You can paint hair with planes to help it keep it's structure. Then after that, you can go back and add the rhythmic quality to it. Think of hair as if it were drapery. This works especially well if you're drawing long straight hair. Think about how it pulls, bunches and flows. Now this tip, I think works well for any hairstyle and that's to pop it into Photoshop and put this filter on it. If you don't have Photoshop, try that Gaussian blurred technique and procreate. But if you have Photoshop, filter gallery, crosshatch can give a really beautiful simple statement that will remove distracting details. What you want to do is make a copy of your original by pressing this button right here. Then just ax out the original so that you'll have it. If you're working with a large file, you'll want to actually resize it to be smaller for this, it'll speed up the render time and it will also just work better this way. I go to image, image size and I make it 1200 instead. Then go to filter, filter gallery. On mine I already have crosshatched selected, but it's under brushstrokes if you need help finding that. Now, I'm adjusting these sliders so that the hair shapes look really readable and clear. This will be something I can use as an additional reference to help me simplify. You can see how it helps to simplify not just the hair, but really the entire picture. We can see how the original could be overwhelming. But when we look at this and how simple it is with its simple shapes, it becomes more readable and easier to understand. Therefore it's easier to have faith in ourselves that we can draw it. Hair gives us the opportunity to balance our design. We don't have to copy every direction of every little piece of hair. We can change things to better suit our pieces. Sometimes a lock of hair maybe better flipped the opposite way from the way it is in the reference. Look for opportunities in the hair to make your piece more balanced. Now, for a couple of extra tips. That imporal line will often get a shine on it. You could also add a soft glow around the hair with a soft air brush, to enhance the idea of the light. Remember, you don't have to give your viewer all the information. Sometimes it's more fun for them to do some of the work.
9. Painting Demonstration: So now I'm going to show you how I usually like to work and procreate. This first demo, we'll have the iPad Pro in view for the setup portion and then the rest will be a screencast. Then after this demo, I'll share more time lapses and my thoughts on drawing and painting. So getting started on this, I'm grabbing my 5,000 pixel by 3,500 pixel, 300 dpi Canvas and then I click the Wrench icon here and press Insert a File. Then from Dropbox I grab my reference. If you've saved your reference image to your camera roll, you'll just go to the Wrench icon and then click Insert a Photo instead. Now the image is imported into procreate and I'm just going to press this arrow right here. Now pinching and zooming so I see the whole canvas. I'm going to click this arrow again and then making sure magnetic is turned on, I'm going to grab the corner and make it smaller and drag it to the left. You might have to do this a couple times to get it right. Now I'm going to duplicate my reference. So I click Layers, swipe left, and then click Duplicate and I take the arrow and drag that over. This line will let you know that they're lined up perfectly. Then I'm going to click my Layers and swipe right with two fingers on that top layer. This makes it so that the layers alpha locked. What that means is when I paint, I'll only be able to paint within those pixels that are already on that layer. So in this case, I'll only be able to paint on the top of this square, which perfectly matches the dimensions of my reference. I like working this way because it makes spotting positive and negative shapes easier because you're comparing two things that are the exact same size. You can also alpha lock the layer by simply tapping the layer once and pressing alpha lock from the list of options. I just like using some of the gestures because they're quicker. So I filled in the background using the soft brush because it's really big and it covers quickly and now I'm going to begin painting with the 6B pencil large, one of my all-time favorite brushes. So I'm picking a color for her skin and the light, and I'm just starting to put in that basic shape. Her face is longer, so I'm kind of thinking with that block form for now as I place the first strokes. Now I'm going right in with the shape of the hair, trying to capture the angled contour and filling them. With the 6B pencil large, you can put the pencil on its side and it'll give you a thicker stroke and then I'm seeing that I can consolidate my values. So I'm considering her hair and the background as one value for now. So sometimes I'll start my paintings with a loose gesture drawing. But more often than not, instead of starting with line work, I'll jump right into shapes. So that's what I'm doing here. So looking at this, it might be overwhelming. But think as if it were a still-life and not a portrait. That'll help relax you a bit. Thinking objectively may help you get rid of any fear approaching painting portraits. So now I'm grabbing a color for the shadow side of her neck and now another one for her face and we're just trying to get in that latent statement and now I'm going to make her face a bit later because my squint down at my reference, I see this whole side goes a bit more on the light and now I'm refining the shape of the hair there, I'm looking at the negative gray space around the hair actually while I draw. Again that darkness in the hair back there, nice and dark and now I see that the placement of the bottom of her chin is off, so I'm just pushing that a bit and then I'm mapping out the area of her eye sockets. So I put that in darker. Now I see her forehead is nice and soft. So I'm adding this midtone color between the dark and light values I put down. So now I'm checking out the negative space in the lower right corner. See how there's just a little piece of black there. I want to try to get it more like that. So I'm just going to work to try and match that up a bit better. Of course, this is not necessary to copy, but what I'm getting started, I find that the corners are good things for me to anchor down for measurements and over here on the left corner, I can see the shoulder needs to be pulled in by looking at the negative space here. Dragging an imaginary line over, I can see that the back of her color lands about here and then another imaginary line here and the sort of tilted nature shows the tipping forward of the neck. I'm just placing a couple lights and shadows on the shirt. They're not exactly right but that's okay. For right now, I'm still just trying to get some colors up here. Now when I squint my eyes, I can see that this part of the shirt falls into shadow. So I put that in there. We want to continue the light story all the way down. Now I'm putting in this sort of rhythmical shadow shape that connects her brow here to her nose and I can see I need to make her face much more narrow. So I use the black of her hair to shorten the width of her face. Now taking a look at the edge quality over here, It's not a tight edge but soft, so I'm pulling some of the gray back into that. There's a lot of push and pull on a painting approach and that's part of the fun I think, discovering as you go. Then I notice this little cash shadow shape here from the hair, so I push that a bit more saturated and paint that on the edge here. I'm going to duplicate my painting layer because I think it's time for some smudge effects, I click the smudge icon here, and with the soft pastel brush, I begin to solve in some matches. Here on the forehead, along the face, between the face and the surrounding areas, across the shirt, in the hair, into the background, across the neck, from the shirt into the background. I like doing this because it softens the edges, but also pushes neighboring colors into each other. If you know about light, you know that color bounces around. I feel good about that so I'm going to merge it down. I want to pick up a light value in the hair because I want to start establishing the light hitting the hair. With the side of my 6b pencil arch, I'm just lightly hitting that onto the canvas then I just smudge a bit with the soft pastels much tool. Now I'm getting a dark value to try and distinguish this edge of the hair and I'm working my way down, painting this black shape here in the corner a bit more accurately. I'm noticing that this head has a tilt to it, but somehow I've managed to straighten her out, so I'm going to draw a center line to help me remember the tilde. The center line isn't straight up and down but it's tilted and the eye line will also be tilted. As a result of this tilt, the chin will come out, so I'm adding a bit more of the cheddar one, sticking it out more. Now I'm thinking about the shapes of the shadows on the face here. Once I nail those down, everything else will become easier to place, I'm beginning to hint at those. Now swiping right with two fingers on the layer, I'm turning the painting off alpha lock and I go to adjustments, liquefy, adjust the size, and then start sketching things around. This is one of the blessings of painting digitally, It's a lot easier to adjust incorrect proportions. I would say leave liquefy for small nudges like this and just repaint things that are really in the wrong place. Now going into layers, I re-alpha lock my painting layer. Continuing on, I grabbed my smudge tool and blend out this chin a bit, and then I take this dark value and I tried to get some of these shapes in here more accurately. I'm remembering that the neck is like a cylinder, so I'm trying to think around the form by blending across the neck. Now I'm thinking about the plane of the eye sockets and how they're like a pair of sunglasses. I'm also indicating this dark brown. Now I'm adding this little color change on her forehead here and I'm painting that saturated nose color. I'm trying to put back in that shape of the light I see on her neck, and I define the back of the neck with the hair. Picking up this lighter color, I tried to get the light on the chin. Note about color picking, you don't have to pick them from your file, you can make your best guesses and really make this a study for color or you can also pick your own colors and get creative. It's up to you and what you want to do. This little piece of light on the collar is important for the Lydian story so we want to be sure to put that in, here the collar has planes too, you can pretty much break anything down into planes. Getting this little piece of light is also important because it helps to describe a shoulder. Now I'm being a little more bold and I'm popping in this highlight on her zygomatic bone. I'm turning alpha lock off to make some liquefy adjustments. Then I re-alpha lock it. Now I've gotten to the point where the colors are up here as much as they can be. It's time to anchor some of these features into place. I'm adding a new layer, grab a new color and grab the willow charcoal brush. With the brush pretty small, I draw a line straight across on that new layer. I hold my brush still at the end of the stroke so that it snaps to a quick line. Then I tap my pointer finger on the screen so that it snaps to a perfect horizontal. You can do these around the brow line, the nose line, the chin line, etc. Now we've given ourselves straight lines to compare the features too. I can see I'm I on track or I'm l off. Right away, I can see the brows on the painting should be higher, as well as on the nose and chin. This is the check I don't feel like doing sometimes, but I always find it's worth it and it helps my painting move along to the next step. Being sure to click back onto my painting layer, I go in and start making my corrections. I add in this lightness above this line to push that nose up. I push up the brows, knowing that I can come back later and fix them. I add in simplified shapes for the eyes for now and I add in this patch of light that hits her cheek. I'm still using the willow charcoal brush, but I actually really like this brush as well, so I continue to use it. I push up the neck, finally seeing that I needed to lengthen it the whole time. Even though it feels wrong, I add the lips right on that line and because I put that in, now I can see better where the noses cast shadow needs to land. I put in that dark shape. I put in the darkness of the part of the lips and I put in this little piece of light above the lips here. While I'm being a bit more bold, I add that bright red of the bottom lip. Having the lines just gives me that extra bit of assurance I need sometimes. I put in the dark areas around the lips and at the corner of the mouth and I try again to place this tricky chin. Sometimes you get it the first time, in other times it takes seven tries. Keep going and be patient with yourself though. I added the nostril to help further develop the nose. Then with a lighter tone, I go back in and add the shape of the brow bone. Again, I try to check out that rhythm line from the brow curving into the nose shadow. I've neglected the forehead for a while, so I go in and adjust those colors a bit further. I also see that the keystone shape isn't clear at all, but a mess of values, so I go in and begin to fix that. To take a small break from the face, I grab the background color and paint the negative shapes around the hair. Then I grab the black to capture a little curl. Now, I'm adjusting the placement and size of some of these light values. I'm going to be a bit bold and put the highlight on the nose. I spin the hue to blue to experiment with the idea of it being a blue tinted highlight. Then I very softly indicate the scleras. Now I see that I went into details too soon. I do it too, so I lightly smudge the eyes. While I have the smudge tool on hand, I take the opportunity to soften some other areas around the face. I find it's a constant back and forth for me, personally. Defining and smoothing, defining and smoothing. Now with a big soft brush, I'm adding a soft orange glow all over the skin in the hopes that it will unify it a bit and give it a little bit more saturation. Now we're about to wrap up the iPad in view part of this demo, but I hope that this was helpful for you to say. I'm still trying to figure out a way to paint comfortably while filming so that I can show you the demo. But when I work my head is typically over my iPad more and closer to the screen. I'm going switch over to screencast view for now so I can get in there a bit more. Now for the sake of your time, I'm going to triple time this screencast as the process is for the most part the same, just heading into smaller and smaller shapes. Now I'm getting the nostril in there and some of the darker values around the nose. Now I'm adding a little bit of a value transition on the forehead. I'm continuing to develop that area light above the lips. Now I'm adding a new layer to add a new measure in line to help me place the eyes. I lightly indicate the sclera which is actually blue, and the top lid. I try to capture these plane changes that happen on the nose here. I make it more dramatic for now, because I think when I smooth it out later, it'll work. Moving my blue measure in line with the arrow tool, I place it across the bottom lip to help replace those shapes better. I add in the dark cash shadow from the lips onto the chin. I also adjust the shape of the cheek and jaw line along the left side. On developing the color of the shirt, pushing this part a bit darker. Now I'm smoothing out or jaw area above the lips, her cheekbone, and forehead. Now I'm being more bold adding in that cache shadow shape from under the nose. Now I'm adding some darker tones on the lips. On the nose, I'm trying to capture some of the subtle value changes as I get more specific with it. Then I add this lighter shape to show the convexity of that brow bone. Adding that little triangle of light at the edge of the nostril helps show the form of the tooth cylinder. Now I'm being a bit more bold with these eyes. Getting this line darker and adding in the lash line and upper eyelid shapes. On the next shadow I see there's a little saturated rust color between the dark and light values, so I add that in. I'm doing the same thing at the hairline, add in a little transition color between the forehead and the hair. Now I'm adding a little bit more detail to the shirt. Red is such an intense color, but if you ever want to make red even more intense, you can put flecks of green around it. Now, I'm adding some curly hairs around her hairstyle. Not copying individual logs, but just trying to capture the feeling of it. Now I'm taking a closer look at this eye, and the nose to soften the edges while thinking about the planes. Now I'm adding that little bit of light on her brow ridge and smoothing it out. Then some highlights on the nose. The highlights will help to make the nose project forward. Now I'm giving a little attention to the forehead, trying to imagine the planes and the value changes on each. Now I'm using curved lines wrapping around the neck. I smudge them around the form in the hopes that this will give the appearance of turning. I crisp up the edge of the color and add some green to the edge of her neck, bumped up against the red of the shirt. Here I'm just adding more cuts of light and shade on the shirt. Now I'm bouncing around the features into the hair, on the shirt, darkening the top lip, and working on the eyes. As I mentioned, eyebrows are so key to determining the expression. In my painting she looks worried because of the way I've watched these browse. I'm fixing that a bit and I'll come back to it later to fix it more. Now I'm adding a transition tone along the jaw line. I softened it with this much tool. Like I mentioned, a big soft brush also works well around this area along the edge of the jaw. Now we're finding the shape of that cash shadow under the bottom lip. Now with a soft brush and a darker red, I softly add some color to her cheek. With the soft brush still I begin to add in the Irish shapes in the bottom lid shape. Now picking up this lip color, I start to make adjustments to the values on the lips. Remember that the bottom lips plane will face upwards. In this lighting scenario, that bottom lip will catch a good amount of light. Now I'm hinting out these blues Clara's. Now I'm switching to the 6B pencil procreate for large brush, and I added her island Irwin. Now about to flip my Canvas, and if you're wondering how I do that is by pressing this button here. To program yours, go to Prefs, Gesture Controls. Click Quick menu and turn tap one. I tap this button and flip my Canvas horizontally to give myself a new perspective. Now I duplicate my painting because I wanted to make some changes with the Lasso tool. But I want the colors from the original to show through underneath. This will make clean up a lot easier. I select this eye because I realize it needs to come in a little bit. I do this with magnetic turned on. Once in place, I tap the arrow to deselect it. I'm happy with that so I merge it down. Now I can correct this broken edge with a Soft Pastels Much tool. Now with my 6B again, I'm adding some tones around the face and in the hair. Flipping back now, I'm just doing some measurements with my blue line. If you're wondering how I'm able to easily move this, it's because I made a teeny tiny little dot here on the layer as well, making the whole layer larger and easier to move around. Duplicating my layer and turning off a lock all, I manipulate the shirt with the Liquefied tool and I move it to what I think is a more accurate spot. Now I'm working on some of these details around the shirt. Now I'm going to pick up the pace of it more as to not take up all your time talking about the same ideas. But now at last I'm working into some of the smaller details, getting in some of the highlights in the eyes. Now I'm finally getting rid of that curve and the brow that makes it look like she's worried or sad. Here I'm smudging the areas around the nose, and now I'm making the color of the bottom lip later. Moving onto the hair, I'm making swirling lines to capture some of the texture. I smudge out some and leave some showing through. Now marking on the plains around her eyes, trying to put in smaller and smaller value shapes. Now I'm working on the edges of the shirt. Now I'm making her skull arrows a bit lighter, her nostril a bit darker and more defined, and I work all over the place on this, sneaking up on values slowly and carefully. But this is just one approach to painting. Sometimes I'm careful with my process, and other times my goal is to be more loose and expressive. I think it's good to have a general idea of where you'd like to go though as you start a piece. So that you can better decide what process steps to take to get you to the end of the piece. Now I'm putting on this highlight of the nose again. Sometimes I do things once, but sometimes I have to come back to things over and over again until I like it. Now I'm finding a clear distinction to this plane change on the nose as the nostril goes from side plane to under plane. I try to get these plane changes around the brow than it is as well, even though it's not quite as clear in my reference. E you can hand out the planes even when you don't see him. Now I'm working on the plane changes that describe the eyelids holding over the eyeball. I'm making these tones more bold, so merging them as I go along. Now grabbing the soft brush, I add a little more redness to her cheeks. Then with the 6B pencil, I add on this brow, and adjust the tones on the cheek. Now I up the brush size and add in some of those negative shapes around the hair. I brighten this highlight at the edge of the nostril and I zoom in to add the highlight on the nose. Again, I'm adjusting this highlight and manipulating the edges. It's all about getting better and better shapes, values, colors and edges for me. I'm experimenting with the edge of the shirt. I'm not sure if I want it to be a lost edge or a found edge. Now I'm searching for a cool textured brush with the hair. I decided to try out this one called clay and the organic section. I think it does a nice job of capturing the texture of her hair. Now with the 6B pencil large, I do more work on the shirt. Then using the willow turkle stream brush, I work on the eyes more. It's definitely a balancing act with these eyes. I found myself putting things in and taking them back out. Being a little bit indecisive, in those cases I find it's good for me to take a break from the piece and reset my eyes and my brain. That's what I did here. This part picks up after a break. Now I have gotten to a point where I really need to zoom up on my portrait. I make sure my references is saved to photos on my iPad and I opened up the photo. Then I swipe up, grab procreate from the dock, and drag it to the side and drop it. Then I can pull the bar in the middle and zoom up really close on both. Now I can really get in there with the details. Since I'm about to make a lot of detail changes, I make a duplicate and paint on a duplicate. This makes it so that if I take the details too far, then I can lower the opacity of that layer, and have my more simple version show through underneath. Towards the end of a piece. This is often how I work. Taking a bit too far on duplicate. But liking some of the work I did. Working on a duplicate layer and lowering the opacity later is often the perfect solution for me. Now I'm making tiny little color changes here and there around the piece using the 6B pencil pro create for large brush. I'm using the soft pastels much told whenever I need to soften. Switching to the soft brush, I add that softness around the edge of her jaw line to help it move from light into shadow. I also use it to unify other areas on the face. Duplicating my layer, I decide I want to scaling this up just a bit. I think this will solve part of the problem of not painting her face narrow enough. Then I merge it down. Back in split view. I duplicate my painting and adjust the tilt of this eye with magnetic turned off. Then I fix the edges with this merge tool and I merge it down. Now I'm continuing to make some small shape value color and edge changes, bouncing around the features. Now I want to refocus on what's most important to me in this piece. I look at this cross hatch filter from photoshop. I duplicate my painting layer and start making some changes on the duplicate. I worked to get the darks grouped in dark enough and the lights, light enough. I'm using the willow charcoal brush on a lower opacity to slowly work up to changes. Here I have before the simplification and after. I think I want something that falls in between. I bring down the opacity of this layer and try to find where about I like it best, and I land about here and merge it down. Now I'm working on the value changes around the keystone shape. Now I'm working on some of these areas around the eyes. At this point I'm color picking from the painting so that the value stay in line with those already in the piece. You'll notice I do a lot of zooming in and zooming out at this point. When it comes to details, what looks good, close up, can really look wacky when use him away. Always change up your perspective when you're working on details. Now with the soft pastel and smudge tool, I draw out the edge where the forehead meets the hairline. I work more on some of these value transitions on the forehead using the soft brush. Then using this brush for my portrait set called glimmer, I'm adding a little extra sparkle to the cheeks. Then duplicating the layer. I'm going to experiment with some big smudges, pulling colors into neighboring colors to have them interact more. This helps to unify, but it's also a stylistic decision for me. If you don't like to paint this soft, no worries. Like I did before, I pushed on the opacity to find the happy medium. I'm happy with this little bit of glow it gives, so emerge that down. Now I'm working at this shadow shape from the hair onto her cheek. The shadows a little curly and shape like the shape of her hair. Now I'm working on refining her neck and her shirt. If you're painting in a traditional medium, and this isn't as easy as color picking. Relate your colors to other colors and ask, is it warmer or cooler? Is it darker or lighter? Is it more vivid or more gray down? Always be making comparisons. You can even pick one color and focus on it to get it exact. Then key all other colors off of that color. When it comes to using references, I'm personally all four omitting things from the photo. Remove things that are distracting and competing with your focus. Like on this, there are some surface wrinkles on her shirt that aren't really important to me, and therefore aren't important to capture in my painting. I'm not going to put those in. I also don't want her form to disappear under a bunch of unnecessary details. I take artistic license and change things up where I see fit. In this type of work, I actually let myself stray away from getting an exact likeness to. Since this isn't a commission where likeness is important, I feel okay letting my painting be an interpretation of her versus an exact copy. I'm finishing this up by tightening up edges, making slight color adjustments, etc. I'm zooming in and out to see what needs to be fixed. Now I'm going to call this one finished. I hope that was a little bit helpful for you to watch. Now let's move on to some quicker time lapses.
10. Time-lapses and Tips: In each time-lapse, I'll give a short synopsis of what I did. Then I'll jump into an art topic. I'll include the main brushes I used at the beginning of each time-lapse. But of course, you know, my go-to blending brush is the soft pastel brush using this much tool. So that's usually my blending brush of choice when you see that things are gained smoothed out. For this one, I wanted to show you all how I would set up a painting if I were starting with line work first. I make a very detailed drawing to start. I only go into the painting once I'm confident with the drawing. This isn't how I usually work. But I found it's nice because the hard work is done at the beginning of a piece when my energy is highest. I may try this process more in the future. A question I get asked sometimes is where you always able to draw? The answer to that is absolutely not. I don't think I went into life with any amount of extra talent, but I was blessed with one thing in particular that I think has been the driving force for me. That's simply my extreme passion for it. Colors, shapes, light. When I see these things, I'm just amazed by their beauty. I could spend all day making art and admiring art. That's how I know it's my passion. If you're like me and you have this same drive, then you probably want to always continue to improve your drawing and painting skills like I do. How do we do that? We learn, and we practice, and we repeat these things for the rest of our lives. How I learn is I loved to read art books and I also like to take art classes in person and online. I embraced the idea of being a lifetime student. When I'm out of learning mode for too long, I find my work begins to plateau or even get worse. When that happens, I know it's time to dedicate myself to learning for a while. I watch a skill share class, or I head out to the community college, or I joined a painting group. Then after I learned a bit of new information or have been reminded of something I know, but with a freshmen on it, then it's time to put it into practice. I make a painting study from life, a photo, or from my memory to really test the ideas, focusing on whatever it is I learned. I'm also a big advocate of challenges. Challenging yourself to 30 days of painting every day or 100 days, etc. I think the best way to improve an art is to embrace a lifestyle of being a forever learner who diligently works hard and puts forth the effort. In this painting I wanted to have some fun. I wanted to let my brushstrokes be expressive. Being painterly can require an uninhibited mindset for me, which I don't often have. But here I was ready to be more free with my approach. I use my oil painting procreate brush pack for this. I've included most of the main ones I used in the brush set in this class. Since this one is more stylized, let's talk about how to find your style. I think individual style is partly innate in partly a mixture of all the things we admire. I think it's something that's developed over time through creating lots and lots of art. You can nurture the style you want by copying those you consider to be masters. Those whose works you already love and our quote and quote goals. Say you want to learn how to draw characters and there's an artist who makes amazing character sketches, copy one of their designs. Keep it just for yourself though, and don't share it online or take credit for it. With just that experience alone, you will have gained some essential skills and you'll be beginning to develop a style that you like. Then copy another person whose works you love and really investigate to discover what it is you love so much about it. Then branch off and try to do something without looking at anyone's work. You'll see some of the techniques seep in, but you'll notice there are unique to you with your own spin on it because they were done by your hand with your unique perspective added. You actually can't copyright style, but I'm personally not for copying other people's styles and claiming them as yours, but I am for keeping yourself surrounded by amazing art that keeps you inspired and drives you to be a better artist. Once you begin to develop a style and people start responding positively to it, don't feel like you have to stay box down. Continue to express yourself and expand on what you can do. For me personally, this is more fulfilling since I love painting portraits, but I also love sketching characters and one day I want to learn how to paint florals. I would feel too [inaudible] if I was only allowed to pick one of these styles and only produce work in that same thing for the rest of my life. If you're the same, don't stifle your creativity. But for others, it may be more fulfilling to remain in one style of work and build up a body of work that's consistent and cohesive. I know I love looking at Instagram feeds like this. Point is, do what makes you happiest and know that your style or different styles will develop with time. I love the look of Alla Prima oil paintings, and I love the abstract type of backgrounds you often see in those. Channeling that style of brushwork, I made some messy textured backgrounds. Tthen I thought maybe she'd look cool on this background instead. I popped around here. I liked how it added to the painterly vibe. In this painting. I wanted to set up the drawing before heading into paint. I focused on the structure of the head first and then after that went in with colors. Now let's talk about stain inspired and motivated. When I'm not feeling inspired, it helps me to look at subjects that make me excited the paint. For me, it's certain color combinations, like I love pinks and greens. I also like to look at some of my favorite themes like mermaid art or elves or fantasy art. I don't know why, but that's stuff just inspires me. Or sometimes I just like to check-out concept art that always inspires me. Keeping my Instagram feed full of amazing artists, always keeps me inspired to create. Make sure you're falling people who make art you love. Sometimes though I just can't get past the uninspired hump and that's okay. Those times spent time with family and friends and spend time on the other joys in your life. What helps me stay motivated is the dream of being a better artist and making something that I love. Also remembering my long-term painting goals, that always helps me too. On this painting, I kept it pretty soft. I didn't go into much detail on the features. Sometimes I think less is more. That was my approach going into this one. I also loved painting his forehead. This reference made me have more of an appreciation for this underappreciated feature. Sometimes people asked, how long should I spend on a portrait? There's no rule for that. Personally, I spent anywhere from one to five hours on a portrait made him procreate. When I go past five hours and it's just a portrait, not a full figure, that's what I know I've gone into noodling mode and I've stopped being decisive. I think that's what it's more about. Knowing when you've gone into autopilot and aren't thinking anymore. That's when it may be time to step back, let your brain refresh, and then come back to it again later. Most of my paintings aren't done in one session unless I'm doing a quick one-hour study. Otherwise, I'll usually come back two to four times before I'm finished. Once I get past about four times though, I'm probably never finishing that thing. So short answer, work for as many hours as you're being productive and progressing the peace forward. If you've been stuck in the same spot for a while, put it away, and come back to it later with a fresh eye. With this reference, I really like the model of sweet expression. I don't think I quite captured it in the end. But I had fun painting this one. I learned that I like painting with my willow charcoal large brush. Because it's one size, it forced me to not jump into details too quickly. Since I'm not super happy with how this painting turned out and it didn't quite meet my expectations for what I wanted it to be. Let's talk about when you feel like you'll never be good enough. I've always loved drawing, but when I first started taking drawing more seriously as a teen, sometimes I would get super frustrated with myself because I wasn't drawn as well as I wanted to be and I wasn't meeting my expectations for myself. Sometimes I would even rip apart my sketches in frustration. I still feel like this sometimes, but much less. Occasionally, I'll delete an unsuborgeable drawing. But when I'm drawing now, I feel more free to enjoy the process and enjoy the learning experience rather than just feeling frustrated by my lack of ability. I think that this is something that comes with time and age as an artist. I've been serious about art for over 10 years now. Looking back, comparing my experiences now to at the beginning, I get much less frustrated with myself now that I've learned more. This is why learning is so key. Not only will it make you a better artist, but it will also make the experience more fun. If you're in the frustration phase of learning, know that with time and effort, it'll get easier and more enjoyable. You'll see a little jump and progress here and that's because I did a little work in Photoshop. Not because I couldn't do it in Procreate. But sometimes I move over to Photoshop to change up my perspective. Sometimes even just the added distance I can get from my screen can give me a new perspective and a fresh eye for mistakes. Like I said, my expectations for this one we're higher, but that's okay. I'm not going to love every drawing I make, even after drawing for 10 plus years. But I learned something with this one and that makes it worth it for me. With this painting, I wanted to do a quick study with my oil paint brushes again. I wanted to make the subject the like rather than capturing the models exact likeness. I feel I say this in every class, but it's because I think it's so important and that's to keep in mind the value structure when you're painting. We have to understand the lighting situation. For example, on the skin. If I'd made a value too light, it will look like a bump. If I'd made a value too dark, it would look like a hole. We have to keep the values in proper relationship with one another. Squinting is one of the best ways to do this, it helps to group the lights and the darks. What's in the light needs to belong to the light and what's in the shadow needs to belong to the shadow. If when we squint, say a value pops out as two light on the shadow side, then we know it may be a misplaced value. Painting forms under one direct light source will help in lighting this. They sell these forms on Amazon. In art class, I always thought these little form drawings were so boring and pointless, but I was really wrong. If I don't know how to properly shades something simple like a ball, then how will I ever know how to shade the tip of the nose? Direct lighting scenarios like this are really fun and satisfying to draw because the shadow shapes are dark and defined. Try to find references like this if you can, since they're great for practice, but also really fun to draw. In this painting, I experimented with starting off with a really, really soft brush. I kept this one soften and stylized. Speaking of references, I got this image and a lot of the images in this class from Shutterstock.com. I have there 10 image a month plan. I wanted to tell you about some free resources though. I'm so thankful for all the generous photographers in models out there that share with us. I found great free resource photos from Pixabay.com, Unsplash.com and Pexels.com. All of these are sites that allow use of the images even for commercial purposes. I'm trying to get more in the habit of this, just to avoid any copyright issues. I've also drawn from models and in those cases I like to either tag the model or link to the original photo. Sometimes I'll also reference celebrity red carpet looks. But I try to use those references loosely and make it more of a creative piece. What's on my personal to-do list and maybe it could be on yours too, is to take a photography course so that I can learn how to take my own portrait references. If we do that, then it can be our own personal vision from start to finish. With this painting, I went into it wanting to spend a little bit of time developing the portrait. I went into this one with some patience and I needed it for the hair. Some of you may have joined this class because you love making portraits for fun. But you may be someone who's a professional or maybe wanting to become a professional one day. Being able to draw portraits can be a very valuable skill. It opens up a lot of opportunities for the working artist. One thing you can do is take on portrait commissions. Many people want pictures of their loved ones. I found that there's always a market for this. If you're wondering how to price your pieces, see what people of a similar skill level or charging. But also don't sell your work too cheap. If you do, it'll end up not being worth it for your time. Come up with what you think will be worth the time you're going to spend and then adjust as you learn what works for you. You can also take on character concept work. Many creatives like writers need someone to bring their characters to life. Being able to draw people is a wonderful skill to have if you're interested in taking on concept work. I think you can grab attention with a face better than anything else, so you can be hired to make a portrait for an ad. Procreate actually hired me to create a portrait for their Procreate 4.0 release and it was one of the coolest opportunities. It's not just freelancer work opportunities, but opportunities to teach like I do here. Teaching portrait drawing and painting is one of the most rewarding things I get to do. There's always someone else coming up who's ready to learn. If you have something to share, teach it. There's a lot of opportunities with being a portrait artist, but we don't just do it for the monetary opportunities. It can be extremely rewarding to paint faces and experiment with different looks, feelings and stories. If you find yourself enjoying this, keep at it. Always strive for better and opportunities to make money with your craft will come, I promise. For this final demo, I picked this reference because I loved how you could really see the forms of her face. I also thought the pose was really pretty and sweet. I may come back to this one and put more time in. But I wanted to try a new approach with this one. I was pretty disciplined with myself. I only made the reference less blurry as I felt I was ready for it. This really, really helped me focus on forms, value changes and the edges. When I first started drawing, I thought the more detailed, the better the piece. But as I worked more, I developed a deeper appreciation for soft edges. I believe softness is very much a part of my style and the look of a lot of my pieces. I encourage you to experiment too. Try something that's a little different from what you would normally do. Because you may find something you like even better.
11. Saving and Sharing Your Work: To save your work, click the wrench icon, then click "Share". Then, I like to save mine as a JPEG. Then I press "Save Image". This will save it to your camera roll. If you don't use Photoshop, you can crop it right in your camera roll, by pressing "Edit", and then using this crop tool to bring in the sides. Procreate also has a cropping function now, but I'd just like to crop mine outside of Procreate so that I know I still have my original. Once your image is cropped, you can press this button and email it to yourself. If you have a Mac computer, you can also Airdrop it to yourself. Just click the wrench, "Share", "JPEG", and then if you have Airdrop on both devices turned on, your computer will show up as an option here. Click that and it will show up on your computer. I press "Accept", "Save to Downloads", and I click my downloads down here on my doc. Then after scrolling to the bottom, I click "Open in Finder", and it's right here at the top. If you right-click and press arrange by date at it, you should be there too. So I drag that over to my desktop and then drag it into Photoshop. Now in Photoshop, I grab the crop tool and I zoom in to make sure I get the edges. Now I press "File", "Save As", and type in Painting Fullsize, so that I'll always have that full-sized version in case I ever want make a print of it. Now I press this button here to duplicate the file then I X out that full-sized version. Now on this one, I want to resize it for the internet, I go to "Image", "Image Size", and I make the longest side around 900, sometimes I do a little less. This will make it so that you can easily upload to websites and have it not be too big. If you don't have a program that resizes, some websites will do it automatically, and if not, you can use a free online tool. Now what I usually like to do after I resize is sharpen the image, "Filter", "Other", "Custom", can work well for this. If it's ever too much, I select the whole thing with the rectangular marquee tool, press "Edit", "Copy", go back to the original resized version and press "Edit", "Paste", and then I lower the opacity. Another way to sharpen is to go to "Filter", "Sharpen", "Sharpen". Then of course, you can also make image adjustments until you're happy with the end result. Once I'm done, I save the image as Painting Resized, so I know that this is the resized version for my files. Again, I save it as a JPEG. You can also save your painting process and a time-lapse, which is a really cool feature of Procreate. To do that, just press the wrench icon, "Video" and then "Export Time-lapse video". From there, you can save the full version that's sped up or a quicker 30-second version. These are fun to share on Instagram. If you'd like to share your work on Skillshare, I would love to see. You can do so on a computer by going to the your project section and then scrolling down and clicking the "Create a Project" button. From there, feel welcome to share your progress shots, class worksheets or finished portraits.
12. Closing Thoughts: Thank you so much for watching the class. To close out, let's summarize by going over some of the things we talked about. First, we talked about the basic forms and proportions of the head. Then we went over how we can create loose gesture drawings and how we can apply knowledge of anatomy and the conceptualizations of the head to create life-like portraits. Then we broke down the head feature by feature and brought it all back together in the end with some portrait demos. Now, it's your turn and I cannot wait to see what you make. Here are a couple ideas that you can try. Do some quick studies, time yourself and try to keep it below an hour. This will help you make a consistent practice, and it will also help you get lots and lots of drawing and paintings behind you. Check out the class resources to really get a handle on some of these ideas we've been talking about. The other half of all of this is the doing part. I encourage you to give those a shot if you need a jump start. You could also create a three-hour portrait study. Really commit yourself to making something and then share it with us in the project gallery. I'm so excited to see any of these worksheets, any of the things you try, and I'm so excited to hear how it goes for you, so be sure to share that too. Now for just a couple of closing tips, get to know your materials. If you're feeling overwhelmed by all this information and you are feeling overwhelmed even by your medium, stick to just a couple of your favorite brushes for awhile. This will help you get to know everything they can do. If you're using procreate, get to know the brushes in procreate, even if it just means scribbling around with them. Using the 6B brush to draw and the soft pastel brush to blend is a great place to start. You can paint a whole picture with just these two brushes. Experiment with different processes and techniques. You'll find once that you like best, and they'll naturally just become part of your process. Pick a process, try it out and see if it works for you. Be patient with yourself. Portrait making can be really difficult at times, but if you love it, it'll be worth all the time you put into it. Finally, always continue to add practice and effort to your knowledge and improvement will come. I'm so glad you've joined me in this course. Thank you so much. If you're interested, I'd love to see you in my other classes still. Please join in on the phone if you'd like to learn more with me. Thank you so much again guys. Until next time, happy painting.
Gabrielle Brickey, Portrait Artist - ArtworkbyGabrielle.com
