How to Easily Draw a Portrait | Understanding Features & Proportions Part II

1. Introduction : Hello, my name is Braden investor. I'm an artist, YouTuber, and I make content for the Internet of Things. Welcome to this class. In this one, I'm going to be teaching you how you can effectively draw a portrait using the Loomis method. If you're worried about drawing something from nothing and have no fear. The way I teach is I go off of reference photos so you can get a true understanding from reference to actually drawing something on paper. Now this is a number to a seven series set that I'm making on the luminous method. But the whole point is for you to really come out of this whole series with a thorough understanding of how you can approach any reference that you want to draw. So what to expect? In this one? I'm going to be taking you through the step-by-step process of drawing your luminous head. So we start with drawing our circle, followed then by the oval, which of course is our side plane. We then identify our vertical and horizontal axis. And then that allows us to punch in our hairline, our brow line, the bottom of our nose, and then the bottom shin. And then from there, once we have the foundation established, we can then start to sketch in the features and all these catching the futures. But it makes sure that they are proportionate to one another. And the hope is that you start to see how the Loomis head plays into the actual structure of basic human form. So that's the four one-on-one. If you enjoy it, definitely leave a review. I always like to see reviews that way. I know how I can do better as an instructor for you. And I would love to see your projects. That for me makes my class has come full circle when I can actually see the value that you guys are doing. That's what to expect. I don't see you in class. 2. Step (1) Drawing out your Loomis Head: Okay, so we have our compass and we just have a blue sketch pencil here. We're going to take our accompanies. We're going to set it to about a two. I'm going to place it right smack dab in the middle of the paper here. I'm just very lightly. There's our circle. Now, this specific reference, the subject is looking almost directly at us with a slight angle. So our oval in this case is going to be skinny. It's going to be very skinny oval. Just like that. Then of course on the other side there's not gonna be an oval at all because of the nature of the angle of our subject here. So we're just gonna kinda slice off the side of that circle there. And we've got our vertical axis. We have depending on what the eyes are doing, kind of straight across right here. There's our horizontal axis and then our temporal plane that I like to put in my litmus head. So first-line right here is our airline writer. Then our brow line right here. That's where the top of the eyes go. There near the bottom of the nose, somewhere right there. Now, once we have these established, we're gonna go up, we're going to find that center line of the face. And this effectively splits the face into two sections. Okay? And it also helps us find the bottom of the chin, which is the bottom of our third section of the face, which is right about there. Why not? Okay. Now, once we have the bottom of the chin identified, we pull up and attached to the bottom of our vertical axes. Then we do the exact same thing on the other side, albeit the angle is slightly different. Now remember this is just meant to be a guide, okay? And this is just the limit set here. So once we have the main components of the Loomis head, draw it out. Right here. We have the cheek plane, which extends from the center of the oval down to the bottom of the chin on both sides. Okay, cool. Now once we have that, we can look at the reference photo and we can start to identify the neck and the shoulders. Something like this here. And you can draw your luminous head literally within two to three minutes, or at about 2.5 minutes here with this. But it's not about speed. Okay? I don't want you to focus on speed. I want you to just focus on the technique. Speed will come. Now let's go to listen to. 3. Step (2) Drawing the Eyes & Nose: Okay, less than two. So now that we have our alumnus head established, now comes the fun part. This is where we are going to punch in features and we're going to use these lines as a guide to help us place our features. So with every eye, eyes sit in the eye socket of the head. So naturally, the eye will be further sunken into the face than the brow and the nose will. What I like to do is I like to just draw out pretty much the outline. In this case, it is very much an oval shape, almost like an almond shape for the eyes. And remember, with this specific technique, we're just more or less sketching. So you can go nice and light. You can use a nice light pressure control. And then that will give you a higher value. Then you can start to use a heavier pressure control. And that will thicken up the value and it will lower the value for you. Then for the nose, we start to identify right here. It's nice and light. And notice how we use the bottom of the nose line right here. Boom, there's the nostril and then the actual bottom of the front of the nose. And notice also how that center line of the face is going more or less down the center of my nose. Right? This is one of the reasons why the Loomis method itself is known to be successful, especially for younger artists that are just starting out at drawing portraits. Because it allows you to punch in your features. Much easier in greater proportion than you would say if you were just free handing exactly where those features wind or where you thought they went. So here I've gone up from the side of the subjects, left nostril, and I've identified the corner of the subjects left eye. Then same thing. I want to establish the top of the eyelid and the bottom of the eye, more or less an almond shape. And then once that is drawn out, I can start to draw out the details of the eye. Now obviously when we start to do this with charcoal in future classes, will be a lot more precise, but for now, I just want you to have fun. I want you to sketch it. Nice and light. I don't want you to worry too much about the details. This is more about just understanding how proportions work with your features. When you use the luminous head as a method for drawing out your initial portrait. But then just noticed the technique that I'm using here. I'm taking my pencil, putting it on his side, and I can start to bring out slightly lower values. Obviously, when you look at the way the light is striking this subject, you don't have to worry too much about any areas that have a high value because obviously higher values tend to be white, low values tend to be gray to darker shades. So if there's any place like say, the top of the nose or the Thompson, the cheeks that have a high value. I don't even need to hit it with my sketch pencil. But areas such as this or I'm in the eye sockets, those obviously have a lower value and because of that, that is where my pencil work needs to be. So notice here how I can lower this value. Then this is slightly tricky, but there is a drop shadow from the brow over the eye. And this is kinda how we can establish that. Just nice and light over the top. Don't get hung up on the details. But this is how you do it. Alright? So let's move on to lesson three. 4. Step (3) Drawing the Mouth, Jaw, & Hair: Alright, so less than three. Now what we're going to be doing is we're going to be drawing out the beginnings of the mouth. The beginnings of the mouth. And this is kinda how we start. We start with the drop shadow that is cast by the minerals. The reason why this shadow is in this specific place is because the light source and this reference is directly above the subject. So when it comes to mounts, that can be tricky. But do this, identify the bottom of the upper lip. The bottom of the upper lip sits on top of the lower lip. So as long as you can draw that one with your line work, you can use shading techniques, hatching and crosshatching with your sketch pencil to bring out the rest of the mouth. The lips as it were. This is one of the reasons why I love to sketch, especially when it comes to sketching out rough portraits, is because you can move very quickly and they tend to be fairly forgiving so long as your proportions are close. So now here what I'm doing is I'm looking at the reference photo and I'm bringing out the definition, the actual form of the subject's face. This is one of the reasons why I say that the luminous head as far as the circle and the lines don't get too caught up in that. Use them as a guide. And this is why, because as you can see, the edge of the subjects cheek and chin, It's not exactly like the Loomis head, but the underlying them is hit allows us to identify exactly where the truth features of our reference are? No. When it comes to the hair, same type of deal. When you look at the hair. And this is one of the reasons why I have you guys doing this entirely series drawing sculptures is because hair is a very deep subject. Especially when it comes to portraits. You can spend entire classes on just the hair alone. However, that's not what this class is about. So when you're looking at these reference photos, I want you to draw just the basic shape of the hair, right? Statues are made this way. If you actually look at the hair on this specific statue and there's not a lot of detail in it. But the underlying form, that three-dimensional shape of the hair is very much there. So that's what I want you to focus on with your drawing. Now, I've said this in other classes. When it comes to your initial sketch work on anything, whether you're doing a charcoal piece, a painting, or a sketch, there was initial bits of line work. Those are what they call by definition, the shape. Shape is only ever a two-dimensional, and in fact, a drawing is only ever two-dimensional even when you add value, where people get confused, is that the value that you bring in a sketch, like what we're doing, is an illusion of that third dimension. It's not actually 3D, but you fool the viewer's eye into thinking that it is. And of course, that is one of the pillars of realistic drawing and artwork in general, whether it's painting or what have you. So just be aware of that. So just like I'm doing here, look at the reference photo and just draw out the basic shape of that hair, how that hair flows, right? And try to focus on proportion. We know we've plugged in the features. And then of course, then over the next couple of lessons will really bring out some detail work. 5. Step (4) Linework & Underlying Form: Okay, So listen for now, this is where we really start to get into some of the specifics and the fun bits of drawing as I like to put it. So what we're doing here is we are building up our contour lines and we're starting to mess with the quality of our line work, as well as the weight. And I'm going to show you the difference between what an implied line is and then what a fine line is. So real quickly, a line by its very definition is a moving dots. So it's a dot that is created and then you pull or you push it across the paper. That's the high level of what a line is. However, there are different types of lines. So now contour lines are lines that show you where an object ends. So by themselves, they will only convey an object's basic two-dimensional shapes. So that's what I was talking about the previous lesson. That basic two-dimensional shape, like with the hair. Those are contour lines. Now, the line quality is like when I'm messing with here, It's the thickness or thinness civil lines. So when you vary aligns quality, you can start to bring out the illusion of form, the illusion of that third dimension. So notice how here I have a drop shadow and with the hair, I've started to put on thicker quality of lines, but then leaving other lines in there implied or contour state. So what that does is that helps to start to bring out almost a heaviness, that illusion of three-dimensional form. That's what, that is now. Line weight is the strength of a line or how light or dark it appears on paper now, typically aligns weight and its quality have a correlation. So typically, the thicker equality, the stronger await is, or the darker it appears. And of course, the opposite, the thinner the quality that the lighter that line weight tends to be. So from here, what we can do as we can start to mess with the form of the face where it's going to pull up nice and light whenever it comes to sketching out forms. So like how it looks, right? The underlying muscle structure. Just start off nice and light and always pull your pencil in the direction that that underlying form is in the reference. That'll save you a lot of trouble, you'll end, it'll save you a lot of erasing in the future. So now, implied lines are where you continue a line after a small break and then that loan proceeds in the same direction. So a good way to put it as like this right here. See what I'm doing with this drop shadow off the chin on the throat. This is more or less an implied line, right? I'm not defining it. I'm just using that, that layering of a slightly lower value to bring out an implied line. Okay, So last lesson. 6. Step (5) Finishing Touches | Final Thoughts: Alright, listen, 5s is the last one. So this one, we're just going to be going over the detail work and I'm going to expand a little bit more on what I was talking about when it comes to line work. So now, as with implied lines as I was talking about in the last lesson, the last type of line is what they call it defined line. And define line is when you continue a line without any break and typically they have a mid to heavy line weights. So like say for example, some of these lines that I'm putting in the hair here, these darker bits, this line right here on the neck, these are defined lines. Now the cool thing with hatching and crosshatching, especially when it comes to sketching with colored pencil, like what we've been doing in this class, is it gives you a lot of leeway, especially when it comes to your line work. Because you, it really makes the drawing pop. When you have a very thick quality line that's defined, you can overdo it. That's why you only want to do it in certain parts of the drawing. If you're unsure about where to put a defined line, you can always go in with a nice light pressure control and just Hatch hatching is where you hatch one way, right? Crosshatching is where you hatch on top and opposite of the line that you just hatched. So there's hatching and crosshatching. Those are the basic techniques for drawing and sketching like this, this, yes, albeit it's drawing. But technically if you want to be treated definition, this is actually sketching or more or less sketching this portrait out. However, what I'm teaching you or principal definitions of what it is to actually draw something because these are the same principles that I follow when I teach the three-layered method. Now, like I was saying in the intro of this class, all seven of these classes, based off of the seven individual references, they're basically three-part. In the first-class, I teach Loomis heads only in these individuals Southern classes, I'm teaching them as head and then sketching them. And then of course, in the final seven classes, I'm going to be drawing each one of them out individually using the three-layered methods. So those are gonna be longer. I'm going to be going a lot slower, but I'm going to be teaching you a lot more about how you can take these principle approaches and definitions, especially when it comes to linework into the three-layered method and into the charcoal medium as a whole. So I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much detail you're able to accomplish with the three-layered method when that time comes. So this is pretty much it. I hope you enjoyed this one. Like I said, this is the second of a seven series sets. So I hope to see you in the other classes. Stay happy, stay healthy, and remember, ever stop trying.