Secrets of Portrait Drawing In Pencil

1. Welcome: What's up, guys, My name is booby. I'm a freelance artist and illustrator. And in this lesson we're going to be learning how to draw this portrait. I've chosen this painting by John Singer Sargent as our reference because of its ability to translate what he saw in the visual world into something beyond ordinary toward the drawing just for the fun of it. Or you have aspirations to make portrait commissions and original arts. There's something in this class for everyone. I'll be sharing with you my process for drawing a portrait and pencil dive in into the subtle nuances of every stage and revealing not just the actions or the thought process accompany my decisions. The skills you acquire in this class include the ability to simplify complex facial features, render values realistically, capture a likeness efficiently, and integrate all of this into a finished drawing. This lesson is geared towards the beginner and intermediate artist with the intention that the skills you acquire here will prepare you to take advantage of the opportunities an excellent portrait drawing affords you. That's all for now. Let's get drawing 2. Materials: Alright, so in this class we're gonna be using these materials in order of importance. We have our graphite pencils, erasers, paper, sharpness, divider and blending stump the pencils I've been using it from Staedtler and fabric Estelle, both a good brands with solid pencils that hold a good taper and shopping Well, for the races, I used three kinds, primarily, a kneaded eraser, a pencil eraser, and a regular verb erisa, the rubber eraser we're all familiar with, great for erasing large patches of value. The kneaded eraser is a bit more of a versatile tool because of its manageability. And the pencil erisa affords us a high degree of precision in our erasing ability. Next to my paper, I'm using the Strathmore or 500 series vestal vellum paper pad. I like this surface one because it's not wise to because it possesses a reasonable amount of tooth. And three, Because he stands up well, to repeat the duration is without getting damaged. I've also used stone hand, you're drawing pads and Fabriano artistic or hot press watercolor paper. And I loved those as well. So pick whatever works for you to sharpen. My pencil is I use a sharpening block. This one is from neutron. And then exactly what I've got to sharpen charcoal with the sandpaper. It's a similar technique here. You use the exact or knives to strip off the word from the pencil and the sharpening block to sculpt the graphite into your desired shape. Alternatively, you can always buy sharp. Now, if you manage to find a reliable one, the divider is a particularly important instrument for how we'll be approaching this portrait. So I suggest getting a good one that's ideally not made of metal and sufficiently large to get the job done it I see ideally not made of metal because metal dividers have a tendency to leave holes in your paper which are impossible to get rid of it. Or on last but not least, is the blending stump. As is evidenced by the name, we had a planning tool great for smoothing out passages of value in a more direct way, applying value to only, I only use this sparingly my drawing practice, but it certainly has a place in the process. So if it's within your means, I suggest getting one that's going to wrap up this material is video. I'll see you next one. 3. Conceptual sphere: What's up, guys? In this video, we're going to be drawing a sphere. And the purpose of this exercise is to teach you how to query there visually compelling lights effect. In other words, how do we create the illusion of three dimensionality on a flat surface? I believe a sphere as the perfect foil for this exercise, largely because it contains a lot of the kinds of edges we find in the portraits without the added complexity of very specific shapes and proportions, a central idea to what we're doing here is the separation of light and shadow. In order for us to create a realistic joins going forward, we must understand that these two families are distinct and separate. Trust me, you want to remember this, there's no quicker paths with 2D portraits on a 2D surface. Darks to lights and lights at it too dark. With that said, I always say more of your time to grab your pencils and let's get drawing. To begin, I'll start by defining the height of the sphere. This height is arbitrary. Make it as tall or short as you wish. From there I proceed to use my divider to determine the center. Mark, that center with the cross and the longest horizontal plane, make a couple of marks to define the width. Because this is a spirit. We want the width and the height to be the same in order to maintain symmetry. Thus, be sure to verify that fact that your divider, when in doubt. Once I have all four points established, connect them with C curves and try to get the best approximation. The perfect spirit that I can certainly wouldn't be perfect at the start. But if our markers are placed correctly, that should get us somewhere in the ballpark. Once I have the shape in place, I'll knock down the whites of the paper with a few layers of graphite from my forage pencil. From there I proceed to build up the form its successive layers of graphite. For my B pencil, I'm drawing this way from memory, but even in the references on screen, you will notice that the shadow shape in a sphere is generally in the form of a semicircle. Let that pattern guide you and the patient as you build up your tone. Dark values and graphites and like say, oil paints, are not easily achieved. So avoid the temptation to push harder with the pencil to get quicker results. In this moment, I'm creating the core shadow by making it darker than the value surrounding it is darker than the rest of the form shadow because it's the part of the shadow or receiving any reflected or indirect light from the surrounding regions. Beyond that, we want to make sure we soften that core shadow into the rest of the form and preserve the area of reflected light. We want to avoid making it too dark or too light. If you squint your eyes, the entire shadow shape should coalesce. Now's a good time to jump into the light shape. Starting at the Terminator, I'll begin to create my darkest band of halftone values, keeping my eyes always on the shadow to make sure I don't encroach into that level of darkness. I like to build my life values and segments taken on one band of value at a time and connecting them with intermediate values afterwards. Doing it this way, it gives me complete control over how dark or light each part of the light shape is. With some of the half-tones in place. I'll expand my value range to include parts of the center lights of the sphere, which are lighter than the halftone previously considered. For the highlights, I'll leave the parts of the paper on blemished. Let the white of the paper shine through. Make sure your values and the light shape go around the sphere completely. The movement of value from half-tones, the center light is subtle. Tones change very slowly near the lightest lights and dark and more dramatically as they approach the terminator. This principle is known as Lambeth and mission law, and it's the reason why the values are on the center lights tend to be compressed. This juncture presents an opportunity to cross check your work and make sure that your dog half-tones are not too light or too dark. The reflected light is not too bright. And that's your light and shadow families are still separate. You can say yes to goes, You're on the right track. Going forward, most of our actions will consist of building up the saturation of our values. More layers, making them more even, softening transitions, and making sure you can see a clear gradation in tone from shadow sensor lights. I've always found the more frequently a screen my eyes, the quicker errors in value jump out to me. Doing that alongside getting some distance from the drawing will give you a different perspective that is almost always beneficial. In addition, ask yourself whenever you make a mark, if it has contributed positively or negatively to the image you're trying to create. This is especially valuable when you are approaching the end, when unsure as to what to do next. With that said, we have come to the close of this exercise. And I hope you've been able to glean some insights into how we can create the illusion of form on a 2D surface through a sphere. You assignments in this moment is to draw your own sphere and put into practice the lessons you've learned. Analyze your work from mistakes and iterates until you are happy with the results. That's all for now. I'll see you next one. Bye bye. 4. The Art of the Gradient: I feel that one of the most salient aspects of realistic portrait drawing is the ability for its soft edges and unified value shapes. To do this, you must be able to transition from light to dark values and vice versa with minimal visual noise. Thus, this exercise is designed to cultivate your ability to Layer values, spotting consistencies and tone and softly transition from one value to the other part. It is our worst enemy. So it's sharp pencils and our kneaded eraser on hand, you can have pushed this task, the tools necessary to succeed. Ideally, this exercise should take anywhere 1-1, 0.9 h, depending on the size of the shape and how quickly dropped. So take your time, squint your eyes and visualize how these actions will bring you the results that you desire later on, That's all for this intro. Let's get drawing. First things first, using my ruler and a pencil, I'm going to draw an equilateral triangle. This will serve as the boundary for the marks will make hereafter be approaching this exercise by drawing distinct bands of value and connecting them together with the right intermediate values. Always begin with the pencils and progressively move to darker and softer. Lead. This triangle, our values with gradients from dark to light in this direction. I'll be living my values primarily through cross hatching, making sure to be consistent with my application in each layer. That is to say, avoid zigzagging with your pencil. You don't introduce more noise to your drawing them is absolutely necessary. With each successive layer, the values in this current role at getting darker and closer to where we want them to be. However, we're still going to have some streakiness. Dark spots and areas where the white of the paper still showing through the dark spots you can remove with the kneaded eraser and the white spots you can fill in with a sharp pencil possessing a harder lead, like an HB or an H. Making our way to the second row are drawing process remains the same. The only difference being this rule will be lighter in addition to using lighter pencils to get a lighter average value, you can also reduce the pressure of your application to derive similar effects. I repeat once again, controlled pressure, many, many layers. And then I for spotting aberrant values will get you the kind of even told you after. Once I'm happy with the consistency of my values on this new role, I started merging the two rows by shading and they valued my pencil. That's somewhere in between those two values on the value scale. Exactly. The pencil to facilitate this transition will vary based on your individual drawings. What's important is that you experiment until you find the right one. Pressure matters. The white pencil with too little or too much pressure can lead to swap our results. If you're still having trouble getting it to look unified, I suggest scribbling on top of crosshatching because they were allied to get into little nooks and crannies of the paper a bit better. I said begin on this third row. I'm depending largely on my HP and H pencils to do the work of building the values. As you get lighter, the layering of value should become easier as it requires less time to reach full value saturation. Not to mention, we don't have to sharpen our pencils as often. I truly hope that as you watch the movements of my pencil, but you can observe a specific pattern to transition between values smoothly, layer them until they are even and diligently bridged the gap between each discrete step back from your easel or squint your eyes, you should not be able to tell where one starts and the other end. If you can. Those transitions are too abrupt and in need of more refinements. Periodically I go back to areas are considered finished with a very light pencil like a to H. Or for each, I tried to unify those regions with the new lighter value. This process really eliminates those white spots and gives a crisp look to the entire picture. Now, let's us rules of value. We need very little graphites. Your lights hand is necessary to avoid going too dark. Err on the side of caution, begin lighter than you think, and pay attention to what pencil you use to merge those rules with the ones beneath. We are now approaching the conclusion of this exercise. Scan your eyes throughout the triangle for areas of need of improvement. Transitions that are not social enough, values that are uneven, edges that are too harsh. If you're happy with the outcome. Well done. I'm sure to you this you have the better grasp of the patients and attention to detail that is required to make truly stunning portraits. Nothing great is achieved quickly on your journey to better portraits is now fully underway. Thank you for watching. I'll see you in the next one. 5. Features nose: Alright, so in this video we're gonna be talking about and drawing the features of the face. In particular, the most important ones which are the eyes, nose, and mouth. Most important to the likeness. That is, I thought it necessary to isolate these features because they are the focal points of the face, they also central to getting good likeness. Now the facial features are not exist in a vacuum. They have to sit correctly in the overall structure of the head for them to resonate butts, having sort of a trial run in drawing them and getting a proportion of rides and visualizing what they should look like you had will make it much easier when you are constructing the head to draw them as they should be. Now my attention here is not to create a highly rendered nose are highly rendered mouth or highly rendered. I that would take too much time and ultimately wouldn't do very much for us in the end. What is most important is that we have familiarizing ourselves with the shapes and the general movement of value across those forums. Protein. Before you start drawing the features by yourself, it's a good idea to print out the image, crop out the parts of the face you actually want to work on. Increase the scale and then draw it on a one-to-one basis as far as the size of things. That way it's just easy for you to make judgments on hides, the widths, the breath, breath, this is two-dimensional, but the heights and the width. So I'm gonna begin by drawing the nose. And the first thing I like to do is create a straight line blocking. What that means in simple terms is I wanted to get a general sense of the proportions of the nose using only straight lines and ignoring a lot of the small or a minor angle breaks that I see along the way. If you look closely, you'll notice as I make my straight lines and try to capture the general expression of the subjects. I have these little lines across the forum. And those are basically markers of Angular Burke's and Engelberg bean when there is a rapid or a sharp change in the direction of the form. And these small lines serve as markers, as guide points that I can use to verify the accuracy of my shapes. And made sure that I'm not deviating from what I see my reference. I'd also like to point out that at this stage, it's not really going to look like what you've seen in your reference. It's a rough sketch and it's only compose a straight line. So you can only look so much like what you're drawing. Also, given that this is a sketch and not elaborate drawing, you're probably not going to be perfectly accurate either. So just take a step back mentally and try to enjoy the process and realize that you are having fun here. Are you trying to learn as much as you can about the nose of, in this case was enough era. And hopefully some of those lessons can help you later on when you're doing something more than fine. Right now I'm going back in and redefining the contours and the wing of the nose, you my best to improve upon those shapes, infusing them with C curves and S-curves. When working on small areas like this, I tried to utilize negative shapes as well as positive shapes as much as I can. Negative shapes between the spaces in-between movie, actually fun to draw. I'm happy with the shapes that I see. I'll begin to add value, starting my two H pencil, moving to each B. And finally the pencil, the value engine, this painting is fairly compressed. So I'm going to as much as I can unify the values that I see, minimize the variation. After that, I'm going to include some dark accents around the nostril decrease of the wing, of the nose and the contours on the right-hand side. You'll notice that in this painting most of the edges are soft spot in certain key areas like I have indicated on screen, we have some medium and hard edges that introduces a certain level of variety that makes this painting worth looking at. With all that done, all that is left is to add value to the maxilla, the nose side plane, clarity to be lighter than everything we have on the paper so far. So I'm gonna make sure to indicate that. In addition, we want to soften the edges between the maxilla, the bridge of the nose from Ball and the wings. Do this two indicates that the form is turning and the degree of softness is going to suggest how quickly the nose transitions for those key anatomical landmarks at the side of the nose that have are absolutely drawn up the nose onto the next one. 6. Features mouth1: I have to say the mouth is a more complicated shape. So you might want to slow down a little bit more, trying to think it'd be more abstractly, maybe turn your paper upside down and that's going to help you. But ultimately the same principles apply. Take advantage of those palm lines, the patient with the measurements that back off and keep your eye focused on the whole as well as the specific. And constantly remind yourself that the purpose of this exercise, again and understanding, it's all about adjusting, improvising, and getting yourself to replace that you're happy with even more so than spinosum utilizing those little markers to guide me as I move through the structure of mouth and make sure that I'm not going off track in terms of my proportions. And if I do, I'm able to catch it. I can't say it enough. The ankle breaks are your guide. So whenever you notice a sharp change in direction, make sure you note it, and use that as the reference points for all the marks you going to make going forward. At the start, I will begin by working my way down the contours and the right hand side of the mouth. Keeping my shapes simple, stick into straight lines and relying on the angle breaks the judge my alignments for the shapes with the lip to look accurate, we have to judge not only the length of the lines with your angles. It's difficult to measure angles with one's hand. So these horizontal and vertical plumb lines, well, let's us incorrect angles and proportions in general. Crucial at this stage to just get something on paper with the understanding that you will have to modify it later on. That is not to say you should rush, but only to understand that a piece of paper with only two lines on it lacks enough information to make meaningful comparisons. Right now I am ready to better specify the true nature of the shapes. If you've done your job correctly in the previous stage, this part shouldn't be too difficult given the fact that there exists already a framework for you to build on. However, be aware of complacency, It is possible the straight line blocking had some structural errors and we cannot be afraid to correct them at any points. This part of the drawing and tells a more careful consideration for every variation in the shapes that we see in our reference. There are no shortcuts to draw and better as we must practice using the tools at our disposal, plumb lines, negative shapes, squinting your eyes, using the divider, stepping back to see the whole. All this will act as fail-safe. So when our initial judgments are incorrect, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Moving on to the values, when I squint my eyes, I see two major value shapes. Some highlights on the lights up the two. No doubt there are some intermediate values merging the both of them. But at first, I want you to focus on just to get them even unified and possessing the correct shape. Beginning the top lip and making my way down the bottom lip, I keep a steady hand applying consistent strokes with my pencil and eraser and excess graphite to my pencil eraser to better define the value shapes. There is a dark accent between the two lips to make sure to indicate that it's at this point where we have sufficient information about the mountain, the page that we can expand our value range ever so slightly. Tell me a few layers of value in the area surrounding the lip and we have a complete sketch, the mouth. That's it for this one. See you soon. Bye-bye. 7. Features eyes1: With the nose or mouth completed, all that remains is the eye. Unlike the two visual features prior, the eyes, a bit more of a challenging task to complete. Reason beam, as Sergeant painted, it's edges are very soft. The sheep's a morphous and everything blends in with what's around it. In some sense is a good thing because it's indicative of the Mastering which the painting of the ad was handled, but it presents a difficult task for us as we try to draw it. First things first, we have to get an outline of our subject on paper. I'm going to start with the eyebrows, make my way through the eye sockets and finally, the eye shape. The eyebrow is basically a modified rectangle with a triangular base. And the eye itself a triangle, the convex space and the downward tilts in typical fashion. We're keeping our lives streets, paying attention to key angle breaks. That's sporadically check now proportions, we plumb lines. Sometimes you'll see me drawing lines that aren't in the painting. I do this to help me visualize the relationship between two points more easily, especially if there's an odd angle. Now I'm wiping down the initial lane with my kneaded eraser. You want to be careful to not over erase else your efforts be wasted. Conversely, if you don't remove enough graphite, your initial sketch will get in the way of the new lines. While drawing the, I don't get carried away with drawing eyelashes or individual hairs in the eyebrows for that matter, sergeants in this painting only suggests the appearance of those things. Accurate value shapes with soft edges will be sufficient to provide the illusion of hair. Later on, I will use my pencil eraser to carve out some indications of eyelashes to complete the look that we have to, at this juncture, I've decided it's time to introduce value to the sketch. The outline isn't where I want it to be yet. But I realized I need some tone to help me see what's actually wrong. If you join up, you inevitably reaching the sticking points. And once you must remember is if it looks wrong, it is wrong. And if you can see that, you can change it. Looking back now, the tilt of the eye and the awkwardness of the shapes in this area. Or the corporates simultaneously working on both shape and value, I see that the eyebrows are only slightly darker than the average value of the eyes. So for the purposes of this sketch, I'll group those values together. The rest of the eye socket, however, would be about three value steps. Two to three values That's really lighter than the eyes and eyebrows. As I work my way through the shape of the eye, I'm relying both additive and subtractive join, meaning that I'm using the tone, the values that I put down on paper to help me find the actual shape of the eye. But I'm also utilizing my eraser to remove the excess graphite and helped me create that illusion of eyelashes. Haven't gotten this far. The shapes are starting to improve. My attention has shifted the smoothing out the value transitions between all the elements of the eye shape really are not quote-unquote sharp edges in this eye shape. So what we're dealing with our levels of soft all the way to Los edges. By the way, if I haven't mentioned it already, degraded between two disparate values by creating an intermediate value between them. This will cause the two disparate values to match optically and transition smoothly. With that said, we are officially done with these sketches and I trust this trial run. However many times you need to repeat these exercises will leave you with a lot more confidence to tackle the joints to come. That's all for now. See you in the next one. Bye bye. 8. The Outline Pt.1: Alright, we can officially began this massive study known as our first on the agenda is the outline. Now there are numerous ways we're putting the stage. Everything ranging from side size, comparative measurements to more tonal approach, arbitrary, comparatively relied mostly on my eyes and proportional dividers to get my measurements correctly. At the end of the outline, I'll be transfer my drawing onto a different sheet of paper after making some corrections to Photoshop overlays before adding value to the drawing. But that said, the materials you need for this stage are your pencil, paper, divider, eraser, and basically everything you need for the rest of the drawing. Just a few tidbits of advice, don't work too small. Use a light pencil. Make sure you have a well-organized to do space with lots of writing a paper. Beyond that, you're good to go and we can get started. To begin, I have it printed picture my reference right next to my paper. I start from the top left hand corner. And utilizing straight lines, break down the complex shapes that I see into simple ones. This approach requires you to draw a line from one angle to the next, put down a marker and shrink those together as best as you can. Kind of connect the dots type approach. At an early stage such as this, you want these lines to be as broad as possible. So ignore much of the detail. You see my hair, I'm focused on just the essential. Whenever I draw a line across shock, It's an ant with my divider and compare it to what I see my reference besides, in addition to length, angles matter. And ever so often I hold up my pencil vertically and horizontally and check to see them are angled, bricks are lined up correctly. It's very easy for error, so accumulates work in this way. So you have to be extremely meticulous about every mark you make even more so than me. I suggest you start with product, particularly around the facial features. Wait to get the general proportions before specifying the lips are most shows the exact shape of the nose. Lean on your negative shapes wherever possible to corroborate the marching making a given area and avoid the temptation to get detailed too quickly in this outline process, more than likely at some point you will discover something isn't looking right on the head. Don't panic. Just slowly trace your way down to every section you've worked on. Look at heights, widths, angles, and wherever something looks out of place. For me, this happened a few times. One instance, the nickel's too narrow, then it was too wide. Another time, the entire left-hand portion of the hair was too far from the right side, and so on and so forth. In the words of Richard Schmidt, confidence does not come from doing things perfectly. Window you can fix things. Hello. At this juncture, I'm fairly happy with the outside contours and I'm ready to define the shapes on the inside of the form. The same rules apply. Straight lines, draw markers and every key angle break. Only now we can more easily utilize negative shapes because we have a framework to work out. If you look closely for that'd be the eyebrows or hair. I'm always looking for visual shorthands. The incidence of inaccuracy or the speed of the joint, it's pretty high. And so I don't want to over-commit to my lines by spending 15 min drawing a specific IC whenever possible, try to combine the shapes that you see. I suggest things that can be better define the tone later on. See e.g. the hair. Now I'm just adding some details slash placeholders with embodying the hair. So I remember where they are once I start adding value to that region. After that, I'm scanning my eyes to the drawing, looking for areas that caught my attention in need of fixing. Once those corrections I made, I can finalize this stage of the drawing and move on to the next assignments in this moment is to create your very own outline, replicating the steps you've observed in this video and bringing you're drawn to a similar level of completion. Don't worry about it being perfectly accurate, like I alluded to earlier, there are going to be some errors necessarily because we're working within certain constraints. As you progress through the different stages, you will inevitably improve upon the marks with meat and finally arrive at a good drawing. Don't allow grids to be the enemy of good. Repetition every day is the only path to mastery. That's all for this one season. 9. The Outline Pt.2: With the shoe lobe is behind us. We cannot commence with a more complete depiction of our subject. In this stage, we introduce more complex contours, infusing our drawing with C and S-curve in addition to the streets already present, it's now more than ever. We must pay close attention to each and every shape and their relationship with one another. Take your time to crosscheck your measurements and utilize the tools at your disposal to increase your sense of accuracy. The end goal here is to get our drawing close enough in this linear design to this painting by sergeants. Such that when we begin application of value can focus more on that in a bit less than finding out proportions. That said, grab your pencils and let's get drawing. Firstly, I'm going to start by reaching down my pencil marks from the previous stage with a new Larissa. I want to remove just enough graphite for the lines to be barely visible so that the marks that comes to have some guidance but are not completely obscure. Next, working my way down the right-hand side of the face, I'll attempt to imitate the countries that I see in my reference, do my best to be as exact as I can. The shape that I see. I spent a lot of my time looking at my subject and then back in my drawing, trying to spot errors wherever I can. As a result of my earlier work, it shouldn't be too difficult specifying these lines. The majority of the work is getting things in the right places. And beyond that, we just building upon a foundation. However, proportions are not accurate. This stage will prove to be more difficult and bring those errors into greater focus. And that's you don't be dismayed. Go back to the drawing board and try to identify where you went. In areas like the hair, that is sometimes enough to suggest the appearance of things rather than trying to imitate the hair exactly. This is in part because hair is amorphous, always changing the shape and appearance. And also because it helps us to think more abstractly as opposed to trying to draw individual hair strands which has an error we all make when we first start drawing. Like in the previous stage, I'd like to start with the outside contours before going inside. Just because I find it's easier to get the sheets within to look rights when they had a good surrounding, so to speak. Once you move to the inside contours, I'll start to elaborate on the shorthands we created. Anymore information to the shapes are still leaving aspects that will be better expressed in value. Parts of the hair, eyelashes on certain halftone shapes. As you work your way through this drawing, you might be wondering, why do a master study. There are many reasons, not the least of which is artists like sergeants were able to translate what they saw in the visual world to something beyond the ordinary. And the words of William Blake, to see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. This particular painting, the distinct sense of form again, in a portrait that is evenly lit with no strong shadows is a hard task to accomplish. The distinct value groups of the hair, face, and background we see when we squint our eyes gives this simple composition is striking the rising edges from the sharpness of the profile to the softness of the skin and hair excites the eyes and stimulate our imagination. If you're struggling to sushi correctly, it might help to think about it that if familiar subjects, maybe you shouldn't L-shaped than the nose or trapezius and the hair or whatever the case may be. Giving those shapes and name it change the way you see them and help you draw them more effective. Before I wrap up this video, I just want to say, don't be fooled by the speed of these time-lapse is this is an incredibly deliberate and often slow process to be patient. And anytime we're efforts towards better drawing will be rewarded. In the next lesson, we'll transition from lines of tone and begin to sculpt this portrait from the inside out. That's all for this one season. 10. Values Block-In: The blocking is unimportant but often overlooked aspect of portrait drawing, its role as ancillary Bob, without it, we run the risk of misjudging our values are settling for poorly-designed shapes. This stage allows us to create a foundation of more organized values and better linear design support the more subtle mark-making to come. Our focus here will be on grouping our values appropriately, eliminating some of the white of the paper and improving upon the lines from the previous stage. View this as a trial run, an opportunity to further analyze the values in this painting. Line quality before we start rendering with that said, let's get drawing. Before commencing with this blocking and made some modifications to my initial outline using a projected overload the painting to aid in those corrections. After that are transferred on to a different sheet of paper. And here we are. I begin this blocking with the hair. My goal here is to create one relatively dark, evenly or value over the entire surface. Keeping the variation in values minimal and leaving the embodying the hair as the white of the paper. This process will require several layers with a sharp pencil and match patients try to be consistent in your method of application. That is to say if you're scribbling, do that when entire layer before switching as opposed to scribbling, some cross hatching, hatching, and so on and so forth. Remember that even though our focus is on value application, there is always room to improve the shapes in our drawing and enhance our proportions. In addition, besides consistency and layering, maximize the usefulness if you need eraser by pulling our dark spots where you see them before they accumulate significantly. Happy with the hair. For now, I'm going to migrate to the eye sockets. First I'll create one average value for the eyebrow and I, equivalent to that of the hair, fine-tune the shape of the eye and eventually work on the valid inside the eye sockets which alighted on the eyebrow. And I individually next are developed the darkest values in the nodes, which are by the nostrils on wing of the nose. I like to be ordered in our shooting my values. So for that reason, I'm only going to indicate the values in each facial feature that are the darkest to maintain that workflow On the lips, the boundary between the upper and lower lip will be the darkest value with the upper and lower limbs themselves in mid tone. In this blocking, we dealing with approximations of what we see now reference, minimizing the number of variables is key here. So if two values are close together, we make them one and save ourselves from the endless complexity. When I screen my eyes, the shadow shape in the air around the left-hand side of the neck and lower jaw jump out to me as the darker sediments left in this picture. So before adding our next set of values, I plug those in with value similar to what I have in the eye socket and connect them with the surrounding regions. There's not time for us to add some more half-tones disjoint. I start with the nose. I connect the half-tones there with those around the forehead before sliding down to the next, creating a base for the values there. Foremost on my mind is keeping the virus that I'm creating now Latin on the values from earlier to ensure this portrait looks at least somewhat two-dimensional, there has to be a hurricane values for objects look real, which is why we started with the tacos group of values before moving on to the midtones. Beyond the nose and neck, in between the iron nose and around the chin will be the next set of midtone similar in value will be having the nose and forehead connect those value shifts in a sort of a chin strap all the way to the ear region and blend those terms together. In effect, there are three main valley groups in this portrait, as you can see on screen. Within those groups are slight variations that make the picture more lifelike. However, and this is blocking were more concerned with the larger forms and unifying the immediate value groups to create a cohesive blocking. The white of the paper represents most of the lightest value group, given us ample room to go darker when we begin our modelling. That's all for now. See you next one. 11. Rendering the form Pt.1: Like with the previous chapters, I'm starting in the hair with my dark and softer lead. I worked my way through this L-shaped, building up the values until they are as dark as I can get them. I'll be ignoring the ornaments in the headfirst, but I'll get back to them once the actual mass of the hair, it's best to define. You'd like if you're doing a lot more sharpening at this point, because it darker pencils get blondes faster. If you're anything like me, you're going to be bored out of your mind. But hang in there, resist the temptation to push down harder with the pencil. And in time, this section will be over. If you look closely at your reference, if you notice that the values in these regions are lighter than the surrounding and the edges noticeably softer. Make sure to highlight those differences, as well as introducing variety in the shapes of the hair. You don't have to replicate exactly the pattern of the hair presents, but you do have to draw them as clumps and clusters with soft edges composed primarily of C and S-curves. I find that when drawing here, confidence strokes create a more natural appearance like connecting multiple lines together to the same end. Went to go ahead and connect the hair. But this shadow shape in the neck, simply because they are close in value or right next to each other. There'll be other parts of this joint where you have a shadow shape and the skin close in value to the hair. Don't be afraid to connect them and soft edges and be wary of exaggerating the differences in the values when in doubt, step back to get a more accurate sense of how the values relates. This year of the hair. It's interesting, primarily because of sergeants decision to purposely lights in the hair significantly so that it flows better with the overall shape of the face. If you close your eyes slightly, that lock of hair almost melt into the skin. I don't know for sure, but almost certainly there was darker in that region. But yet the final outcome is one that is remarkable. With that said, it should be a discernible difference in darkness between a lock of hair and the hair on the rest of the head. My strategy as I approach these locks of hair in the front of the head. So build up the value. First two, I wanted soften the edges around the locks with a lighter pencil and then go in with my eraser and pencil to create some variety in the shapes. This variety can include extra hair strands, highlights, and negative space. The extra insurance, by the way, it should be thicker than the width of a line. We don't want to be drawing cartoons here. Finally, I'm ready to dive into the embodying the hair. I waited till this moment because those elements are complicated, much like highlights. And I really part of the form. I've taken some liberty with the shapes here, but I tried to match the values as close as I can to what I see in the reference. There is some variation. Some partakes uni lights, others are much closer to the local value of the hair. I've observed that the darker ornaments have much softer edges and the lighter ones, a difference which must be replicated in our drawing if you had to remain true to the painting. Very easy when working on areas like this to convince yourself of its unimportance and tried to draw more quickly. However, if excellence is what you seek, must overcome your desire for immediate gratification and draw these ornaments like they are the most important part of this picture. Experiment as much as you can with the subtle details and the hair. Take advantage of your different erasers to push and pull shapes and don't settle once you get the look that you're after. Personally, I'm using the reference as a guide or beyond a certain point. I'm just trying to create interesting looking at tractions. Beginning of the face and darken the values in the shadow shape of the ear to reflect its true value, which is similar to the hair right next to it. I'll also darken the half-tones around the neck to further elaborate on the shape we started earlier. In the next video, we'll be working mostly on the face and elevating the shadows and dark is halftones to their full saturation. That's all for now. See you soon 12. Rendering the form Pt.2: Here I'm just evening now, the shadow shape around the jaw. I returned to it later, but before then my focus would be on the darkest values in the face. Those values can be found around the eye sockets, ear, and neck, primarily. Beginning in the eyebrows. My workflow is as follows. We define the contours of the eyebrow shape, elaborate on its values, and then connect it to the surrounding regions of the hair and eye sockets. The local value of the eyebrows about the same as the hair on the head. In addition, grid is lighter, ever so slightly moving from right to left. Don't be shy about indicating some flyaway hair strands here and there, just don't get carried away. And doing so processes exactly the same for the eye shape. We draw the contours with an eye for making it more dynamic and truer to the reference. The eye can be simplified as a triangle with a slight downward tilts. So don't be intimidated by seemingly amorphous nature. The eye is about as dark as the eyebrows with a similar movement in value, going from darker to lighter, from right to left. Once I have those two key features established, I'll develop the values in the eye sockets such that the contrast in that area is as it is in my reference. Moving outward from the eye socket into the glabella and bridge of the nose. We see a similar value with the eye sockets. So it's better to connect them and minimize any variety we see when we start to deeply. And the nose, we have some clearly defined halftone shapes. Our job will be to replicate them in our drawing. Keeping a light hand and building up those soft but specific value shapes to the match what we see in the painting. Keeping in mind that the value here will be considerably lighter than anything in this upper region. So while designing the shape, keep your eye on the values of everything else in the picture. In between the eye and nose is displaying a value that is darker than the half-tones on the cheek and typing of the nose, lighter than the dark is halftones on the nose. Devalue sheet that can easily get lost. So I'm going to develop its values now and define its shape. But then that value will be subtle variations, e.g. very nice. The I is a bit darker than everything else beyond that. And returning to the cycling of the nose, which right now is to light relative to water. And it's using my tuition for each pencils, I'm going to darken that side plane connected with soft edges, the value shapes surrounding it. The mouth, our approach for us by establishing the divide between the upper and lower lip, which is a relatively dark band of value. From there, I'll create an average value for both lips, with the upper lip being darker and lower lip lighter and possessing some highlights in the bottom lip, the right-hand portion is darker than the left. And the highlights, although apparently brights when you start them, actually pretty dim when you compare them to see the ornaments in the hair. When viewed as a whole, the mouth has a darker local value than the nose, but he lives a local value than the eye region. In other words, the mouth is in-between the two on the value scale when taken in its totality. The quiz around the mouth is very important to indicates as it gives characteristically drawn, but also highlights an important part of the formula, the face. Often you make it too thin. So make sure there's some breadth to the halftone shape and that you connect it to the values below it. Later on. Leaving the features for a moment, we have free to elaborate in the larger forms of the face. From the ear all the way down to the chin. We have this passage of tone that's about the same value and gives structure to the face. I'm going to start building that area up with an even application of graphites and laid the foundation for the modelling to come. In the next video, we'll pick right back up from here an inch closer to the finished drawing. That's all for now. I've seen next one 13. Rendering the form Pt.3: Slowly but surely we're beginning to give life to this portraits. This halftone shape around the side of the face is an important one. For that reason, I've delineated boundaries with the goal of emphasizing the specificity of its shape and the importance of keeping its edges soft, we must create several layers of value for that halftone shape to appear even on unified, and also make the effort to integrate it correctly. Ear, hair and the rest of the face. This joint will be in a state of flux to the end. So certain things that appeared correct. We now prove otherwise in light of new information, this lock of hair that we drew earlier, at some point started to blending too much with the skin. What's the area surrounding it was dark and response, I've gone back over it repeatedly to darken it with correct value. This halftone shape around the chin is very similar to the one we just finished working on. The value is pretty much the same, and as such, both should flow into one another seamlessly. Of course, there was some variation in this region. If you look closely, you'll see that as the form of the facial rolls towards the edges, the values get darker. This change in values subtle because the forms yet turned very slowly. An attitude of continuous improvement and a healthy level of dissatisfaction. Keep you returning two areas you've previously drawn to analyze them with fresh eyes. There's the ability to spot errors are part of the picture that I incongruous, that leads to great results in the end, for me stepping back and view in the picture from a different perspective, almost always calls my attention to something amiss. Progressing onto the lightest planes on the side of the face, I noticed that it's very similar to the values on the side plane of the nose. And it's slightly darker towards the bottom of the shape than the top. I'll limit myself to enforce and switch pencil here so I avoid going too dark and ensure that I have absolute control of my values. Once you achieve a value that relates properly, we put surrounding it, go back in and create the necessary intermediate values to connect the three main value shapes together, the kneaded eraser plays a major role in my drawing practice in large part because it compensates for the natural graininess graphite, which can be inimical to getting machine-like finished. I'm after. If you prefer, more rugged look to your drawings, may find it less useful or not useful at all. Returning back to the muzzle form of the mouth, I'm going to give a little more breadth to it. If I darken the values around the upper lip, as well as the crease, half-lives right above are about the same value as everything over in this direction. We just have to make sure the darker slightly as they feed into the philtrum. At this point, you probably realize there's actually not much variation and the values in this painting, that's part of what makes it so unique. The trouble one runs into as a beginner is exaggerating the differences that you see. Instead of making them as subtle as they actually are. So resist the temptation to make things super dark and then super light, the darkest and lightest elements. And this joined by quite a bit higher in the hair. Everything else is a sea of midtone. How many Muskegon? The neck can be very easily visualized as a cylinder with a value is moving from light to dark outward from the center. In this particular neck, we have the shadow to the left, the dog halftones on the side, the mid tones in the center, and this light band of halftone value at the top, the shapes are already there. The key will be getting the values rights, creating the appropriate edges, and connecting it all together. While all of the editor, in fact soft, there are levels of softness. The edges here are sharper than the edges there, but softer than those over here. So managing those relationships visually will be the key to accurate representation. In the next video, we'll finish up the neck and apply some finishing touches to the rest of the portraits. That's all for now. Bye bye. 14. Finishing touches: Like I alluded to in the last lesson, over the next 5 min or so, my efforts would be directed towards developing the cylindrical form of the neck and integrating your shadow shapes with its large shapes relative to the focal points of the face the next further away from the light source. So its values on the whole, you on the darker side of the half-tones, we have already established the lightest places in the neck we can find along its center. And from there moving outwards, the values get progressively lighter. And the top left-hand corner, we have the shadow shape, which is effectively the same value as the other shadow shapes in the face. And then seamlessly with the dark half-tones towards the bottom and the hair at the top. Closer to the face, we have this light strip, a value which is a part of the net catching a bit more lights, I have a visual on screen to give you a better sense of what this value should be relative to the other allied planes in this portrait, whenever we start a particular section of the reference, the local contrast in that area increases in our eyes relative to the entire portraits. Meaning you will have a tendency to exaggerate the differences between values if we fail to compare them to other areas of our drawing. Right here, as I start to work on this halftone shape, I can see clearly that along this boundary, the values get considerably lighter. To make life easier, I will not attempt to render this entire section of ones or create the value that I seek in this area before moving on and connecting it to anything else. In my mind, this is a jigsaw puzzle wherein I am attempting to fit together different soft but specific shapes. The values and the neck are very compressed. So even as I make my way to the lightest part of the neck and cognizant that it can only be so light in comparison to what's around it. I will take my time and later my values carefully and to the level of contrast I see is commensurate with Watson the painting. Also, because the neck is a slow turning cylindrical form, express in our drawing, they fled radiation from, from light to dark as we move towards the edges, each phase of the form must be accounted for by unified value. And the only way we get this, if I learn values correctly and removing areas of coincidental value with our kneaded eraser, too much incidental value on either side of your friendships lead to difficulty in perceiving the difference between the two values. In other words, everything starts to look the same and the Drawing Flats. Most of what I'm doing now is filling in white spots in the tone to increase the clarity of the values, as well as adjust certain transitions. I looked too abrupt or too soft. I do this to ensure that the indication of my value planes is consistent with the expected fall of lights will be advertising more or less consistent value gradients as we've traveled further away from the light source, the value of the plane should diminish and lightness accordingly. At this juncture, we are free to focus on the details of the painting. I'm bringing forward the smaller forms such as I'm currently describing the chin. In addition, keep your eye out for areas of flatness or the transition between light and shadow is missing a dark halftone were an edge between half-tones is too sharp, or where the proportions look inaccurate. Towards the end, we want to remove the effect of graininess. Why unseen baggage transitions and clarify on edges. Making it this far then accomplishments and of itself, irrespective of how you feel about your drawing. Now, she'd be honest in your reflection of the good, bad, and ugly. What do you like about your portraits, or would you improve it? How can you carry these lessons into your future projects? Remember to appreciate the little victories. Understand that the road to the top is a winding one. Successful. No one comes easily. I appreciate you all for coming along for this ride. And I sincerely hope that you leave here with better skills and the confidence to meet your dreams. A reality. That's all for now. 15. Class project : I hope by now you have all that you need and are ready to bust out those pencils and begin making some portraits. We are officially at the end of the class. The last thing, the agenda is perhaps the most important thing. And that is putting all this theory into practice. But before you begin your portrait, I want you to practice your values and your ship design through the preliminary exercises and the earlier lessons, those simple exercises will train your eyes and hand to see an act as one, giving you the confidence you need later on when drawing the final portrait, feel free to download the image of the painting we'll be working on in the resources tab and maybe convert it to black and white to help you see the values more clearly, outline the steps. First, create a straight line blocking of the portraits, capturing only the essential forums and ignoring surface detail. Next, infused the earlier blocking with C and S curves to better describe the contours and differentiate the hair from skin from there. Add value to the picture, limiting yourself to only the major value groups. And finally, bring the portraits of full focus by expressing the full range of values that you see, accounting for the variety of edges we have in the reference. If you've made it this far, I appreciate you being here and I hope you are able to take something out of this class to apply your own artwork. I look forward to seeing the amazing work you create for your class projects. But until then, adios