Start Your Daily Sketchbook Habit: Small Portraits, Big Progress

1. Small Portraits, Big Progress: Get better at drawing portraits without all the pressure and getting stuck in perfectionism. In case you don't know me yet, my name is Jerney Marisha. I'm a Dutch art teacher living in Antwerp, and my favorite thing to do is to get you to create without being paralyzed by things like your failure or perfectionism, and that is why I want to give you a creative habit today that can help you to improve your porto skills over time. So if you or drawing something that, you know, you're not a fan of right now, that's perfectly fine. Just move on to a second portrait or maybe a third and see how you will start to understand the face a little bit better with each time that you draw. So don't put any pressure on yourself. Just have some fun observing and trying out things. Laugh at the wonkies. You know, they are going to appear. I still draw wonky eyes and noses and, you know, just keep drawing because if you actually continue your portrait, instead of thinking, Oh, no, I can't do this. I'm going to put it aside and forget about it. But if you're going to continue with your portrait, even though it's not perfect or something, then you will see that it has character, and it's fun to see them develop. So yeah, just give it a chance. If you are fascinated by the human face and you want to become a little bit better than you were last week, then I think this class will be up your alley. If that sounds good, too, then take my hand and let's go. 2. Welcome to Class: Welcome to class. I'm so happy you joined in. Now, let me explain the goal of this class. The goal is to make lots of mistakes. In fact, we even will massacre some portraits, and that's absolutely fine. In fact, that is what's supposed to happen because we need those portraits to get to the cool art when we persevere and just keep drawing anyway. Every artist has lots of failed portraits, yours truly, as well. If anyone tells you, no, I'm only drawing all the perfect portraits all the time. They are a liar. We only post our most successful projects on our Instagram. No, so don't worry about that. Just keep going, keep them short and sweet, so we can progress at a nice speed. You know, if we're going to get stuck in perfectionism and spend hours on a portrait, that's wasted time, you know? We can spend more time on the portraits when we feel comfortable with them. And I know there are quite some lessons in this class, and you don't need to do them all in one sitting. You know, you can watch them so that you can see where it's going to. But just start with one little portrait, and that's it. And see where that goes. Do you want to do one more? Then fine. Are you so enthusiastic that you'll keep on drawing for the next hour. That's awesome as well, but we have to be realistic. We don't have an infinite amount of time. So see what fits in your schedule and your energy level. And your desire as well. And let's see what happens. To improve, it is important that you will pull out your sketchbook on a regular basis, whether that's every day or once a week, that's up to you. But this is a creative habit, after all, and you will only improve if you put in the time. So let's make a deal that we will actually use the sketchbook in any way that you want to. And I'm going to give you lots of options how you can make it fun because that's the most important thing. As long as you are having fun with it, you will keep creating. And for the class project, it's the same thing. You know, it's up to you if you want to share. That's awesome. I really love that. And the other students will be inspired by that, as well. But if you want to keep it to yourself, you know, I know that, especially in the beginning, it's kind of hard to share our art. And that's totally fine, as well. If at a later point in your exercises, you get something that you want to share, there's no pressure at all. So be gentle with yourself. Now, let me show you what you'll need for class. 3. Supplies: Let me show you my little portrait kit. I have some graphite powder. This helps me to map out the face before I dive in with my graphite pencil. You don't need this to do this class, but it can be very handy if you're a little bit anxious to get started. This is a nice bonus. And to apply my graphic powder, I have this brush. It has soft bristles, but thick bristles will work fine as well. In fact, I also really like to use that. And I have little sketchbook that I like to use. It has cheap paper, and it doesn't really matter, you know, something that is rather small and you like to work in. You can go a little bit bigger, as well, I'm comfortable drawing this small, but don't go too big because these need to be quick portraits, and the smaller you can manage, the quicker you can learn. Later on in class, I will also bring in some color. I'm using my ink tans pencils. These are water soluble and very big minutes. But you can use anything. You can use watercolor pencils, just color pencils. You can use something like markers, you know, crayons, whatever you like to use. And that's it. That's all you need when it comes to your art supplies. Now let's talk about our reference photos. You can choose anyone you like, but it is easiest if they are black and white and high in contrast. That just makes it a little bit easier to observe the shadows and the highlights. And if you go to my Pintrs page, you will find a whole bunch of them. My favorite board is called Faces and Expressions, and you can find all the reference photos that I used in this class there. My name is Joni Marisha there as well. So come and find me. Now, let's go to the next video. 4. Tight vs Loose: For our first lesson, I would like to demonstrate the difference between working tightly and working loosely. So I have this reference photo. I'm using my iPad so that I don't need to print out all the photos. So if you have one, it's ideal, but otherwise, you can just print them out. That's okay, or use a magazine or something, something that you would like to draw. And I am going to show you the difference between holding your pencil near the back or at least here and using this death grip, you know, like you were writing, so let's get started. First, I'm going to take my brush. I'm going to dip it in my graphite powder, and I am going to map out the face. Oh, yeah, death grip. Okay, so here I am doing things in a way that's less ideal. So I can see this eye socket there than the other one. I'm going to loosely observe these shadows the mouth will be here, more or less. So shadow here. A bit more of that graphite powder. So there's a shadow here, here's the chin, and we have some hair here. There. Now, let's do the second one. Going to do the same thing. But I'm going to be a little looser, I hope. Here, the eye socket, the nose, mouth, some of the hair. There. I'm going to very gently blow while avoiding my graphite powder in my container. And already you can see that this is very tight and this is more loosely. Okay. Let's do the drawing part with the death grip. So I'm trying to observe that face. Here's that eye. I'm putting on constant pressure, pretty harsh pressure to show you. And then I'm going to observe that eyelid. Something like this. And we're going to draw everything in relation to each other so that we don't need to do schematic, you know, face because of the times you will end up with very similar faces and expressions, and they're not that expressive. But now that I have this eye, I will look at this eyebrow. And I can see that it's fairly low and goes something like this. Okay? There. Could be lower still, but, you know, we're not going for a perfection. Now that I have this eye, I'm I'm moving on a little bit towards left and put in that nose. And I'm going to divide that in a couple of shapes so I can see the bridge of the nose here. And here's the tip of the nose. And there are some nostrils here. So again, my death grip, nostrils, right about here. I'm trying to stay out of the weights harder with this grip. And then I have the nose swings here there. It's a little V shape in between. Then I can see the filtr here. So I'm putting that right here underneath the middle part of the nose. And here I can see that the separation of the lips is rather straight and it's not too wide. She has a very narrow mouth. So that's what I'm going to do right here. Goes a little bit beyond that nosewing. Can you see that? Not much. So somewhere around here, maybe. Then I can see the upper dip here. I need to move this a little bit because remember that filter is here there. And then here is that bottom lip. Okay. So I'm moving over to Let's see. To this part. I'm going for nutter. I. Again, we're not going for perfection. And I forgot to explain there. You can see a little bit of the white underneath the iris, so I'm putting that in there. Then again, we have this eyelid. And right above it, we have a very straight eyebrow. Okay, so now, somewhere around here is the chin. First, it starts pretty straight. Then we have jaw line there, and here as well. So something like that. Then we have this hair here. Okay, so this is a slightly wonky, very tight face. Now, let's do another one right here. I'm just going to take a little bit more graphite powder because I went over it with my wrist. Something like this. Okay. Yeah, that's better. Okay, now let's take that pencil. And instead of doing these harsh lines, I'm going to be more sketchy. So I can see that. See my touch is way softer now. This goes up, then a little bit straight and then it goes down. There's this pupil right here. I'm just doing little circles, light circles until I have something that I kind of like. And again, I'm trying to observe the shape. Okay. Go to do the eyelid. Observe it best as we can, but no need for perfection. Go to repeat this until you believe me. Then we have this eyebrow right here. There. There's a lot of emotion in the eyebrow, so the slightest tilt is going to give you an emotion. Okay, so going to I'm just going to space this out a little bit, so I won't put the nose in too much to the right because there's a little bit of space between the bridge of the nose and the corner of the eye. And again, I'm going to put in the bridge of the nose very lightly. You can hardly see it right here. It will help me to establish the length of it better than if I would just start drawing that tip of the nose here. So here's the tip of the nose. Let's put in a little circle there. And then we can put in the nose wings, again, very lightly. Start out very lightly, and later on, you can go over it again if you want to. Then we have these nose wings right here. Let's tackle that other eye, as well. So a little bit to left here. I'm doing my best to observe the shape of that eye. Not going to get stuck in perfectionism. He's looking straight at us. So I'm trying to do that. And let's try and give her the bottom lash line. Go to put in the eyelid. And that straight eyebrow. A little bit bend it downwards at the end. Putting in the filtrm right here directly underneath the nose there going to put in the separation of the mouth, rather straight. We were being very sketching a little bit past the nose swing there. And then we slightly put in the upper ive there. Not going to go as strongly as we did there. We're thinking in blocks of value, so dark light and not harsh lines. Then I'm going to put in the bottom lip here. And this is a little bit too straight for me. I'm going to do little circles right here at the corners of that mouth. Because it's not really a line there. That's better. Then she has this chin right here. It's a little bit straight here at the bottom. Then she has this nice jaw line. We don't even need to put in the hair. If you want to, you can suggest it by putting down a bit of graphite. But even that, it's going to make it more tight. You see the difference between right and left. If you did that accidentally, you can take a blending stump and just go over it. So it's not there. That's better, right? M. Now look at your portrait and see if it makes sense. I can see that my mouth is a little bit too much to left there. Oh, well, let's see if we can correct that. Go over, that's harsh separation between her lips because it's a little bit too tight for me there. Et's put in a little bit of shadow here. We can see some shadow here. We think of a face in lines, but there's a whole lot of shadow going on. And that will bring some form to your faces. Try not to push too hard on your pencil. It's better to go over it a couple of times. Okay. So now that we look at the two pass drawn from the same reference photo, of course, I exaggerated this one a whole bunch, but you can clearly see which one is way more loose than the other one. The more often that we practice, the looser they will get. A couple of squiggly lines here and there is always fun to play with. A try to reshape your features bit by bit. This one can be a little bit more messy. So now that we know how to hold our pencil, if this is too hard for you, you can move to the middle here and just try to draw sideways like this, and that will also give you some nice loose lines. So now that you know, let's move on to the next liston. 5. Adding Emotion: Let's take the same angle and try to up the emotions a little bit. She has a similar expression, but because of that corner of the mouth that is slightly tilted, she gets a rather sinister look, I think. I think I don't want to know what is going through her mind, and I'm here for it. So let's give this a try. Okay, so Our nose is around here, maybe a little bit longer. Our mouth will be here. Something like that. Just so that I can see it better. Okay. I'm going to exaggerate the shape of her eyelid there a little bit. Going to indicate her nose there. Am I doing a great job at it? No, and it doesn't matter. Keep going. I can see that her left nostril is less visible than the one on the right. And if I go upwards from her nostril there, then I'll get the corner of her eye there. Okay. It's the same shape as the previous one more or less. Okay. That's put in those irises. I can still just a little bit. The eyelid is starting in the corner of her eye and then it goes upwards a little bit. Her eyebrow is slightly raised, so I'm going to put that in. Same thing over here. And this one is a little bit less raised, but it still goes upward there. Okay. Again, there is some white of the eye visible. And just keep going over that line until you're satisfied. There. Okay, that's good enough for now. Maybe this needs to be a little bit longer because there's white of the eye there. It's better. It's wonky, but it's fine. Her nose should have been a little bit more to that side, but maybe I can elongate this corner of her eye, and that's going to look a little bit better. Okay? The filtrum is rather short. This time, the separation of the mouth is a little bit bent. So let's do that. Whoops. We can exaggerate it a little bit. Something like that. You can see this line here. There. That's where the evil smell comes from, I think. See, I also forget that I want to keep my pencil at the end there. So don't beat yourself up if you have difficulty with that in the beginning. Then the shadow underneath her mouth. It goes a little bit in a triangle here. She has a tiny chin, and it goes a little bit like this. Okay. Not my best work, but that is not the point. Point is to put in the work. And you can see some bags underneath her eyes. We can put it in lightly there. We tend to photoshop to get rid of that, but it's going to add to your portrait. I'm going to push a little bit harder right here to put some focus on the eyes. If you make everything as important, then your portrait is going to look less alive. So try to play with that. The mouth and the eyes are most important. For the expression. So play with that. See, the nose is not perfect, but it's still emotive because of those eyes and the mouth here. Okay. That's enough time spent on this little portrait. Let's go on to the next. Another thing that is really emotive is when our characters look away from the camera. That is why I do that to my figures a lot of the time. I just like that. And we can try to really get it as close as we can to this, or we can move them a little bit further. Let's play with that. Okay. So It's a little bit tilted. I'm just looking for the angle, you know, because you'll see it more clearly when you put your pencil or your brush there. It's way less white than I made it, so I can still do something like this. Okay. Um Okay. Let's go. This time, the eyes are squinting a bit more so they are more narrow and they seem a little bit longer. Let's Let's play with that. Again, hmm. Serve the eyebrow. Okay. I want to do the same thing over here. Putting in the Iris. She's looking a little bit more upwards, and that's fine. I just want to play with emotion. Same thing here. See, I'm not making perfect circles. It's not necessary. Okay. Nostrl nostril with a little bit of shadow, so that's a good excuse to be messy. There. Okay. Filtrm so you can see that the angles are not perfect, and that's fine. Just use it as inspiration. I'm going to keep telling you because it's so easy to get stuck in perfectionism. We're only looking to get better and we're trying to observe emotions and expressions. So as long as we're doing that, this is a success. Let's see. So this part is rather straight. It goes a little bit upwards and then down. Okay. And this is enough. You don't need to put in all the details. You don't need to put in the hair or anything. We are mainly going to focus on the eyes and on the mouth because those are the most important features. Still looking a little bit too much towards us there. That's better. If that happens, you can make this part a little bit longer, see? That helps. Okay. Going to put a little bit more effort into that nose. Going to up the contrast here because as you can see this is darker. It's going to create some form. If you don't want to do that, that's fine. But it is fun to experiment with and really observe your reference photo. There a little bit here as well. See it's not in the same places in both eyes. Keep observing. H there. If this bothers you, you can just put in that little circle again. See, it doesn't matter that there are some graphite powder underneath. There's a little bit of shadow here. You can put that in if you want to. So you can experiment with creating form without being overwhelmed by the whole thing. Just focus on this part of the face. There. Done. Let's move on to the next lesson. 6. Evaluate Your Little Mistakes: Even though we're not going to get stuck in our perfectionism, it is important for you to evaluate your portraits after you've drawn them. And then you can see what you might, um, pay more attention to for the next portraits. For example, in this lesson, I didn't really pay attention to the space between the eyes. So the one on the left is a little bit too close to the other one. And I will show you how I deal with that so that I can still make this portrait work. This is just for some extra inspiration. You don't need to do that if you don't want to. But, you know, if you're interested, then let me show you. Now let's go for a slightly more challenging angle. Let's see. So something like this. See how I'm looking for the angle and I'm trying to replicate it here without moving my brush too much. Okay. Then there's nose there. And the mouth is like this. Okay. Let's put in some of that hair. Why not? A little bit of it anyway. Okay. I think I'll bring these down a little bit. Okay. I'm going to start with this e. I think that's put in nose as well. Here, will be the tip of the nose or less nostril. And no swing. Okay, so that helps. Now I can see that I want a little bit more down downwards at the end there, putting in the eyelid. The iris is somewhere around here. Okay. I like that eye. Okay. Let's move on. So it's a little bit closer towards the bridge of the nose than what I initially marked, and it's fine. And see how that line of the eyelash will go down a bit right here. You want to put that in there. Okay. Another iris. Let's not forget that eyelid right here. I want to close it a little bit more. There. That looks better. Okay. You need to not only look at your reference photo, but you need to look at your portrait more because we're sketching rather intuitively it needs to make sense on this page. Okay. Let's put in a little bit of that shadow. And again, the eyebrow starts rather low, then goes up and it goes down again, a little bit. And this one is raised way more. So going to respect that, and it goes down a little bit right here. Then we connect the eyebrow with eyelid, more or less this goes upwards. Let's tackle that mouth. We're going to start with a short filtrm right here. It's always underneath the middle part of the nose, the tip of the nose, where it starts. Okay. Then a little bit lower. Going to start with the separation of the mouth. Again, it has a slight bend to it. Going past the noswing would be something like this. Mine is more angry. That's fine. Okay. That's sketching that upper lip. See how that dip is underneath the filtrm little bit more to the right than we would think. And there's the bottom lip. Left part is darker than the right part. Going to separate the lips more to create some depth there. Okay. I like that. It goes a little. You can see her cheekbone here and then goes something like this. She has a pointy chin and some jaw line. I wish I had a jaw line. Okay. Then we have that neck here goes a little bit towards the right. Then next below her mouth. It's the other part of her neck, shoulder somewhere around here and this goes down. There, that's accurate enough. A little bit of shadow underneath her chin there. Don't even need to put that in, but to help you to understand what brings features more to the foreground than others. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Let's emphasize some of the features going to go over that lash line. Is that a word lash line? There. And again, here's a little bit darker. I don't need to get everything right. I'll keep repeating myself. And you see that here, it's a little bit of shadow as well. That's because the eyes round. Same thing over here. Little by little, you'll get there. So again, is this a realistic portrait? Nope? Did we get an interesting expression? Yeah, we did. That is what we keep focusing on. Just try to make small improvements at a time. Sometimes you go too far with it, and it's fine. Just go to the next page. Let's play with that hair a little bit. There. Just some faint lines are fine. What also helps is to take a moment to see what you can do better. So next time I can see I will want to nudge that eye a little bit more to that side. Now, I'm not a fan of correcting, per se, but let's see. Let's see if we can still do that. If you really want to. I'm going to get my needed eraser, warm it up a little bit. Okay. Now, let's make this the shadow that we're seeing right here. Again, this is totally optional. Then we will put Iris right here and we'll just make this a little bit longer. So this way, you can practice improving your portraits without too much interventions. And see, it looks way better. Let's see if I can smudge this a little bit because it's a water soluble pencil that I'm drawing with there. That's it. I'm not going to fuss over it. Maybe I want to elongate that eyebrow, and that's it. Let's move on to the next one. 7. Drawing the Profile: Now, let's do a profile. These can often be a little bit intimidating, but as with everything else, everything is hard until it becomes easy. For this one, I'm taking larger brush with the bristly brush with thick bristles. I like that more than this one, but this one was easier to teach, so I'm going to switch. Okay. Let's wing it. I can see is eye right here. Then the nose should be somewhere, something like this. Upper lip double chin. Something like this. Okay. Okay, see how much more expressive that is because of the thick bristles and you have a bit more to play with. Okay, I'm looking at that nose right now and I see that I want to make it a little bit longer. Okay. So there's my template. And I'm going to start with his eye there. Just start with whatever feels easiest to you in the moment. It can change depending on the portrait and the angle. There. Then we have this this part right here. This is going downwards in a straight line. So I'm going to put that in there. Then we have kind of triangle right here. Something like this. Let's put in some of those faults in his eye lid there. I can see that I was a little bit too high with my eyebrow. And the eyebrows very short. Goes a little bit downwards right here, and that's it. Okay. There is back underneath his eye right here, more or less. There. There's a little rounded edge right here and then goes back up again and down. Then there's rather straight nowing but maybe I'll wait a second to put that in and focus on the mouth right now. So about halfway could be a little bit more straight or whatever, it doesn't matter. So halfway This is going downwards rather straight. There it goes a little bit back in here. Now, his bottom lip is ticking out goes a little bit like this. He has a little chubby chin right here, and then Then it goes down like that. Okay, so where does his corner of the mouth stop? A little bit near the end of his nostril, so here. Oh, it was rather, okay? It goes downwards with that shadow here. And there's some shadow. I don't really want to observe that right now, so I'm just going to indicate that there's something going on here and here. Otherwise, we're going to get too fussy. That's fine. Nobody knows what that reference photo looks like. Okay, so now, this one is going up. There's this fold right here. It shadow here. And let's give him. This is all black and you can do it like that, but I want to give him an expression. You know what? As the artist, we are in control, not a reference photo. It gets easier to make these kinds of decisions, the more that you practice your faces. So if you don't want to do that right now, I totally understand. But no, that is a totally valid option to tweak your portraits. I don't know if you can hear my sphinx, but I'm sorry. Sometimes he yells at me when I'm filming for too long. Ears can be intimidating, but in the end, it's the same thing. As with the faces, you just observe the shadows more or less. There's a little bit here. And there's some shadow. Behind the ear lobe. You don't need to put it in, but it's good practice, you know? What better way to practice hard stuff than in your little book where it doesn't matter how things turn out. It's all about the experience. Okay, something like that. If you want to, you can take your eraser again and Put some of the highlights in there. If it bot or show that the nose is so dark, you know, there. And that will also help you to create that form. Mm See, there are no strict rules for your faces. Just use these as a playground where you can experiment with things, new things that you haven't done before and see if you can find your own style of drawing faces over time. There's no pressure to rush that, but it will happen the longer that you are drawing. I'm really enjoying all these little squiggly lines right now. Here, I forgot to observe this part. So it was too high. And now I'm correcting that just by drawing on top of what was there before. That creates a nice history and layers. That is what will make a portrait interesting. Okay. I forgot about his lip there, so let's put it in. Upper lip, nice and messy. I'm going to separate slips a little bit more. Maybe you want to observe the shadow. And I'm done. Let's move on to the next exercise. 8. Speed Up: I'd like to show you something. We just did this profile here, and I do like it, but I did this one before from the same reference photo, and this one is so much more loose, and that is because I was working in silence, first of all, this was just practicing for this class. And I was working way faster than I did here because I was explaining as I was going. So now that we see what kind of impact the speed of the drawing has, let's practice with that. If it helps you, you can set a timer for one or 2 minutes or three, whatever you want. But if that stresses you out, then just try to work a little bit quicker than you did before, whatever helps you. So I am going to take this reference photo from David Lynch, and I'm going to try and keep it rather quick. So let's see. There nose. I can see shadow here, and let's put his hair right here. Okay. I'm going to stop talking now because that's going to make it harder for me. Okay, so now that I have his face right here, I'm just going to put in some ice. Also very quickly while I'm twisting my my pencil, putting in some bags underneath his eyes, and maybe those creases here. And in his forehead as well, he has experience. That's it. Now, because his nose is fairly dark, I'm also going to putting a highlight here. And maybe here as well. And see how much looser Ivette is than the ones we did here. Just a bit of sloppiness. Let's Let's try another one. Okay. So there. Again, I'm trying to hold it at the end here. It's going to create looser lines. Let's emphasize some of these. Still holding my pencil near the end. Don't be afraid to go over the lines again. H. Something like this. Going to just touch the tip of the nose again with my razor. Now, let's compare, maybe that eye here as well. There. Let's compare. So here's our latest one, and here is the first one. This one is more accurate and it's also a great drawing, you know. But I really do like the energy of this one. So try to experiment with that and see what kind of impact it has on your drawings and which you like better because we all have different preferences, right? Okay, let's go to the next lesson. 9. Practice, Practice, Practice (& Repeat): As you could see in the previous lesson, I tend to repeat my reference photos throughout this little sketchbook. And that is for good reason because repetition really helps with learning and getting familiar with these faces, the angles, the expressions, and that is what you really want to accomplish because the more you do this, the more you will be able to do this intuitively as well without the need of a reference photo. And it's really helpful to build some muscle memory and understanding of how the face works. So let's practice with that. I'm going to take this new reference photo, and I'm going to do three versions of that in a row. And again, the goal is not to make the most accurate drawing of the person. But to really focus on the expression, emotion, the shapes, you know, don't put too much pressure on yourself, but have fun practicing and over time, you will get better. You know, I keep repeating myself. Let's start out the right way or the easiest way. And, As you can see, with each portrait, I take a little bit more time to observe some more details that I've missed before. In my opinion, it really speeds up the process if you don't waste a lot of time with the first couple of tries. Just quickly observe the shapes and the placement of the features without overthinking it. And you'll see that the repetition of this action will familiarize yourself with a face without getting frustrated and spending way too much time on them. And like in one of our previous lessons, let's take a little bit of time to evaluate after each attempt and see what you did well and what maybe in the future one you will pay a little bit more attention to. For example, this eyebrow on the right is a little bit too high. It's really just above that eye there. So if I would go for a fourth one, then I would really pay attention to that and try to improve that. Because even when our goal isn't to get likeness, you will learn a lot about expression and emotion when you do this exercise. Remember, with each drawing, we get a little bit closer to where we want to be. And over time, we will get better at portraits, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next week, but with some perseverance, I promise you we'll get there. And in the following lessons, I will give you some inspiration to keep the process fun and inspired because that's how we're going to stick to our habit. Okay. So obviously, I took a little bit more time with this one, but you can clearly see evolution of me trying to understand his face. I'm not used to drawing realistically or anything. So yeah, here, it's still kind of a mess. Here, I catch a little bit of his likeness and expression. And then here I think this is pretty close to him. I loved him in Game of Thrones, by the way. But I hope that I demonstrated through this exercise that the more time you spent on a portrait, not particularly within one session, but the more often you draw it, the more you understand the face of that person, you know, all the shapes, little nuances. And if I will draw him maybe ten more times. I think I will become pretty close to the reference photo. But personally, that's not my goal. I'm just into an interesting portrait and an interesting expression. So I'm happy. So, practice, practice, practice, and let's go to the next video. 10. Goofing off to keep engaged: That you understand the basics, let's make some time to goof off because that is what's going to make it fun and we'll help you to come back to your sketchbook. I'm going to give you some prompts and some ideas to work with color, and I hope you will enjoy it. Let's jump in. 11. Unusual Faces: Let's switch it up. We are not going to create a whole sketchbook full with serious faces. No, we're going to add some weird ones to the mix and challenge ourselves to try and draw them. Okay, so I found this lady, and I thought she was interesting. So I can see that her right eye is a little bit lower. Then the other one, her nose is also a little bit to blow croced then she has this mouth here. Something like that. Okay. Maybe I want there. Okay, let's start with her eyes. I'm going to start with this one, so I can see that it goes a little bit down. There's an eyelid here. Putting in whoops. I'm making her look towards the side. Well, things happen. This one is a little bit more upwards. Maybe I'll No, I want to make her look more towards us. Okay. Let's give her goofy eyes there. Then her eyebrows are really raised. So let's put those in there. Something like that she has huge bags underneath her eyes. There. Okay. I can see the shape right here. There is a nostril right here. You can see a lot of it. There's another round right here. It's a little bit more to this side. There. Let's put in those nostrils. This one's a little bit thinner. Um, something like that. Now her mouth, how are we going to break this down? So I can see. I'll start with the inside of the mouth. Her bottom lip is pretty thin. Then her upper lip has a little bit more volume. I'm going to get my eraser there. Let's put on her front teeth there and lots of little ones. There. Don't need to count them or anything. Her corners of the mouth are going a little bit upwards more on the left so than on the right. A Now, let's see about the chins. Somewhere around here, there are a couple of creases. Slide crease here and a little bit of shadow here. Let's see how high her ears. Her ear is a little bit lower than that eye. Let's put in her curls. First. There. Okay. Let's put it here. And the ear lobe goes a little bit higher than her mouth there. Let's see. A little bit of her ear lobe here and her neck goes a little bit inwards. Let's put in that color. There. I like her. I can put in her earring or something like it there. Doesn't need to be correct. And there she is our wonky little lady. I hope you'll try to draw her. It doesn't matter how she will turn out. It's just some practice. Having some fun, keeping it interesting. Is going to get rid of that graphite powder here to make her more dramatic. Can I still I want those reflected slides in there, so I'll just darken up some parts of her Iris there. Okay. I hope you'll join in drawing goofy faces, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Give Them Some Clothes: Now, for this exercise, let's zoom in on the clothes a little bit. Let's start out by napping her out. Nose is a little bit to the right. I'll do the closes later. Okay. Okay. Again, ether me wonky. It's going to be fun. Keep paying attention to the shapes. A Okay. So her bridge of the nose is rather short, then there is this tip of the nose right here. You can see this shape for her right nostril. Then the other one is a little bit more round and lower. And there's this noswing here. Okay, and the other one is also thinner. Like that. Okay. Now, we have this shape of the shadow right here, and that can help me to know where her other eye is right there. This eyebrows a little bit raised and goes a little like this. Don't overthink it. Just keep drawing. I'm going to pull this one a little bit more to this side to make her look well, not cross eyed. Something like this. Okay. Now, I'm going to pull this up because I made the mouth shadow a little bit too low. Although it is still kind of low. She has a large space between her nose and her upper lip, so I'm going to put in the filter right here. Then her mouth is a little bit droopy there. She has in a thin upper lip. Her bottom lip is a little bit more plump. Let's put in a separation here. Something like this. Okay, she has kind of a squared. Let's start with her chin right here. Something like this. And then she has this kind of I'm exaggerating. That's fine. She has a full jaw line. There. Her ear starts approximately here with her eyebrow, there. Okay. Something like this. I made her mouth a little bit too low, and that's fine. Okay. Now, let's give her some clothes. So I can see something like this. And her jacket is going this way. I'm just going to break it up with the face. We're going to simplify it because, you know, I'm no expert at clothes, and it's fine. Let's put in that pattern. I don't need to be correct, through the repetition, it will look nice. We have a broader band right here. Just going to do a couple lines and then we have more of these marks on each side. Don't need to space them out very neatly. Here I can see a couple of those marks. It's not all the way up here, and then we're going to do the same thing. The very regular. Next, I can see another bend here, it starts out a little bit broader than here because there's a crease somewhere. And now we're going to just keep it at one side. Here, it's more like little dots, and then they will get wider. Another one kind of here. And we're going to do the same thing. Okay. Let's get some of the powder. It doesn't need to be black black, but we're going to give it some volume. There. There she is. I can go over that line here to make her less like a doll. Make it a little bit wobbly and more fun. Going to go over her yes again because I was a little bit tight with them. M. There we have a moody portraits with some clothes on. Whenever you have a reference photo and the clothes, they interest you, just put them in. Don't need to do it for all of them. Only whenever it seems fun to you. These are your projects and you do what you think is interesting. Let's go to the next one. 13. Storytelling: In this exercise, let's explore storytelling. So, in addition to your portrait practice, you're going to add one or more elements that could tell a story about it. It doesn't need to be very detailed or realistic. You don't even have to know how to draw something. Just follow your gut and, you know, mess about a little bit. And if you notice that you get a little bit anxious about drawing something without exactly knowing what it looks like, I suggest that you spend a little time on Pintras, look at some cool artists, and see how they go about it because a lot of them just draw things, you know, from their gut and they don't really care about realism. Illustrators are also very good at this. So that's another option if that's more your thing. And just spend some time with their art and ask yourself, how do I feel about this? Do I like this? Would I like to explore this? Then maybe it will become a bit easier to just let go and draw things from memory and maybe a little bit schematic and exaggerated, you know, have some fun with it. You can draw certain objects or animals way larger or way smaller than they actually are. And that can also tell a story about what's going on in that portrait. You can distort your portraits or the thing that you have added to it. For example, you can make one eye really big or something or the ear and maybe have someone whisper into it or shout or, you know, add something that makes you chuckle or makes you think, you know? Maybe you want to express a view that you have and you wish more people would understand. You can be political about it. Anything that gets you excited about creating, try to explore that. And notice how I'm building this little figure on a shoulder. It's more sculpting than drawing, really, and I'm not going to go in too much detail. I just want to find the shape, put in two little eye sockets, shed underneath the nos. And I'm just going to focus on the gestural part more than the details because body language is way more important than the right proportions and realism. No, they can be perfectly wonky. But if their body language is more or less clear, then the story will still come through. See, I'm creating a little hand there without actually drawing a hand. Our brain will fill it in this must be a hand. So don't worry about that. You can keep it like that or add a couple of marks to suggest fingers, especially since you're drawing so small, this will look way better than trying to draw all the fingers separately. You know. Just be expressive about it. And sometimes we have a clear story in mind before we get started, and we can approach it like that. But you can also just pick any subject and try to think how you can add that to your portraits and just draw it that way because often of the times we will take things too seriously and we make it too heavy. So if that is the case for you, then just add something random and maybe just maybe as you're drawing, your mind will link some kind of meaning to it, and then you can react to that while you're drawing. Sometimes our creativity just needs a little kick start without overthinking it, and then our intuition can take over or not, and that's fine, as well. Just see this as playful exploration instead of having to produce something that has lots of meaning, you know, that will suck the fun out of creating and I don't want that for you. So if it helps, let's be random. Let's be messy. Let's not give a single you know what about how it will look and what it will mean. Just draw and have fun and explore. Now, let me get off of my soap box. I'm going to put on some music, and you can see me drawing a couple more examples of how you could tell story. I hope my examples were helpful to you. Just relax, be weird, and have some fun with it. There's no pressure. If you feel like you want to bring in some color or maybe even paint, I say, go for it. This is your sketchbook and you get to make the decisions. And if you don't know what to do, then just scroll through some art, maybe on Pintrest, maybe somewhere else, and find yourself a little story that you enjoy and just copy that one. Now, we have to start somewhere. Now, let's go to the next video. 14. One Accent Color: For our next portrait, let's add in a little bit of color to again, mix it up. I'm going to do another challenging portrait, just for the fun of it. This guy with his demonize and let's map him out. His mouth isn't that white. His attom lip is thinner than his upper lip. And there's this crease right here. Just try to observe as much as you can without getting too fussy. Has this fun has right here. Let's see. Oops. There. There's an ear right about here, but you can't really see, so let's cover that up. Okay. Let's see, am I going to give him demonize or maybe I'm just going to give him some eyes that I'm making up. When you do enough faces, it's not going to be a problem. Now, let's get color pencil or my neo Color cream? What is this ruby red? I like scarlet. So, here is the middle piece, then this goes something like this. Again, make it wobbly. So much more fun than trying to make it straight. This is a nice little exercise to experiment with just a hint of color. And see what kind of effect it has on your drawing. You can experiment with different attributes or you can maybe color in part of the face or, you know, experiment with different colors as well. Just try what you can do with this There. I wish you lots of fun with adding your colors. And yeah, I'm very curious what you will come up with. So, you know, if you have something that you like, upload your class project to the classroom, and I will go take a look and cheer you on. Okay, let's go to the next lesson. 15. Double the Fun, Stack Your Portraits: Et's do another experiment. Okay. I'm taking two colors. This is seabreeze and Fuxia. And we're going to experiment with drawing two faces on the same space. Just going to do loose faces, loose and wonky faces. It's all fine. Okay. So we're just going to go over it. Oh This is not so much trying to create perfect faces again. This is just a fun little experiment while we are practicing our drawing so we don't get bored, you know? Getting bored is not a good idea. Oh I really like this exercise because it seems to connect the two random portraits and tell a story. Maybe she's thinking about her mom or something. You can try out two totally random portraits or you can pick out two people who seem to have a relation to each other. Just play with this concept and see what's going to show up. I hope you like this exercise. Now, let's move on to the next video. 16. Exploring Form: B For this lesson, let's pay a little bit more attention to creating form in our faces. When we only use lines to draw our faces, they will look flat. But when we observe the shadows and the lights and we try to work them in our drawing, then our faces will come to life and we will create form. Don't worry about doing it exactly like in the reference photo. You know, we talked about this perfectionism is overrated. Just try to use your photo as inspiration and allow yourself to not get it 100% correctly. It will still look amazing, and let's not overthink things and just draw. For this exercise, let's use color to observe the shadows. I think this portrait is suitable. It has a lot of shadow and you can't really see the details in his eyes too clearly. I'm just going to put the pencil on its side so I can work in blocks of value. Here is his eye that's closest to us. I'm going to observe eyebrow shape and I'm going to go a little bit heavier where his eye would be then there's this bag underneath his eye. I'm going lighter here. There's his eyebrow. Let's move on to his nose. Here would be the bridge of his nose more or less than he has a big tip of the nose. Putting in a circle like this, barely hidden paper. There is a nosewing right here, and here as well. He has a shadow here underneath his nose. Then M. He has this mouth, left one left side is a little bit shorter, goes downwards. There's this shadow underneath his bottom lip right here. Then he has chin somewhere around here. Here's also some shadow. I'm going to put in the back underneath his eye a little bit stronger. Then his ear starts here more or less. There. Let's move over to his second eye. It's a little bit lower than this one and goes downwards like this. We can make up lines as we go as well. Don't need to get everything correctly. Let's press a little bit harder now, not too hard. Just want to create some more form and contrast. There's more shadow here, shadow stronger. Let's see. There's this crease here. Just keep observing. There's a crease here as well. Let's put some more darkness here with his mouth. There. This side is darker. See so slowly you are really sculpting his face. Let's make his nose a little bit stronger. There. See, instead of we've just taken it piece by piece. We're not going into detail. This is a great way to make a portrait more anonymous. Okay. Also, to not let yourself be distracted by all the details, observing the shadows here. And by doing that, you'll get an interesting portrait. You can put in a couple of lines, but don't overdo it. Okay Okay. So now that we've found his face, let's take this deep indigo or another darker color and this Persian red. And let's see. I want to pick one side. I think I will pick this side, and I will emphasize parts of this. I want you to look at this eye I'm going to put a focal point there by just coloring on top of that. There. I just want to put in a bit more shadow on this side of the face. A I just want to see what this does to the portrait. Did it make it more interesting or did I like it before? Kind of like it before, but did look a bit flat before I continue with this step. Okay, so I like this, but I miss some of that red, so I'm just going over it again. And this way, it will mix in with that layer underneath. Try to see each portraits a little experiment and do things to your portraits just out of curiosity, here I'm trying to bring that nose to the foreground a bit more. Oh, yeah, that's better. That's better. See that shadow goes over its mouth here. Let's see. See, you can put in some lines, but start by really observing those shadows. And then you can play. Just play with your portrait until you like what's happening or until you destroy it, because let's face it, that happens sometimes. But we don't get to the interesting part without our failed portraits. So don't be afraid to do something that you're not sure about. See, he's getting an eye right now, the one and not too defined. Because we're still mainly focusing on the shadows, even when we're putting in line work. We need a little bit of linework to make it more interesting, more expressive. Otherwise, it's just going to look like smudged attempt at a portrait. No, we're going to be bold and going to take risks. Going to make scratchy little marks interrupted lines. Bottom line is that we're going to have some fun with it without worrying too much about the outcome. Now that I have that red here, I also want to put it on his ear there without putting too much detail in it. I don't want to make this into an actual eye. There. Let's see. Going to put a bit more focus on his nose right here on his mouth. And Just listen to your gut. Take the time to observe your portrait every now and then. Just stop for a couple of seconds, look at it, and ask yourself, what do I want to do right now and then do it. And I think I think I'm done with my play session for now. And I hope you will try this two pencils and a bit of playtime while you're observing the shadows, and you can exaggerate them like I did here and just see what it is that you like to do in your portraits. Have fun experimenting. Now let's move on to the next lesson. 17. Dynamic Portrait in 4 Colors: Let's play a bit more with color or maybe rather with a bit more color. I have a couple of colored pencils. I have a very light yellow. This is sun yellow. I have two red, Persian red and a darker chili red. And I have sea blue, and I'm going to build up the portrait with a layer of each color. So my yellow one, I'm just going to move these. My yellow one will basically be my graphite powder. So I will map out face with that more or less, observing the features and shadows. And you will barely see it, but you know what I'm doing, right? I'm observing that nose here goes a little bit off to the side. Then there is some kind of triangle happening. And the beauty of this yellow is so bright that even when you're making some mistakes, you feel hardly you will not notice in the end. So just take a little bit of time. This is his wild hair. Take a little bit of time to get to know his face in a very low pressure way. He has this cheekbone here and then it goes rather straight. He has his mouth here. Something like this. Shadow underneath his bottom lip and then he has this chin, put it on this way. There's a lot of shadow here underneath his cheekbone on the other side. His ear is rather high. The something like that. Now I have a good idea of what this face will look like. I can even be more confident with my linework now. I can see that I need to pull this downwards. It's a great way to position all the features without having to deal with anything. I'm going to create some loose lines, especially with his hair there. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's go to the second color, my Persian red. I'm making thin cribbly lines. While I'm still observing his face. But the pressures off, because we already sketched out his face there. Something like this. There are some wrinkles here. I did something weird here with this eye, but we have colors, just keep moving. Okay. Remember, you don't need to nail his expression exactly. It's just practice. Can now see that here is the darkest spot in his hair. There's some darkness here as well. We have some hair going this direction. That's enough. Let's see. We have this crease here next to his lip. And we have some shadow right here. Looks like a butterfly tie at a well. I think that this looks a little bit boring. I'll just take my first color again and fill this area up. There are no rules. If you forgot something, then just go back in and have some fun. Make bold marks there. Okay. There's a little bit of shadow here underneath his neck. There. Okay, let's take a red. Okay, let's press a little bit harder now. Because I needed to fix his eye there. There. Going to the same thing here with his nostril or rather the shadow underneath his nose. It's a little more shadow right here. See, because of these layers of color, it's going to look very interesting. We don't need to trace everything. I can leave eye eye, his ear here very faint because who is looking at ears anyway? It's all about the expression. Okay. And now let's take the blue one. I'm going to use this one sparingly, I think, but I do want to emphasize his eyes there. His eyebrows. So you can still make some subtle differences in the eyebrows by just putting a couple of marks. This is a really fun way to play with color. And marks. If you're doing this exercise and you don't like, it goes for any exercise in this class, of course. But if you don't like what you've done, then try a couple more because it just takes time, you know, to get used to a way of drawing, to see if there is a way that you like We tried to offset some of the lines as well. I really like that for the buttons here. And let's tackle that hair as well. A little bit. See, I'm choosing where I'm going to put that color and there is no right or wrong choice. There's only your vision. Just experiment. Okay. I can have a really light touch as well like I'm doing right here. I want to put in some of the shadow, but I don't want to have very dark marks because I want a layered face. So wrinkles. Let's put them in there very lightly. There. He has a bit of fun. Um, I hope you will take your time playing with this. You can choose a couple of colors and switch them up, see which combination you like best. Maybe you just want three colors. That's fine as well. But make sure that there's a light one, kind of mid tone, and a dark one to put as final layer. Let's move on to the next lesson. 18. Bless The Uglies, Use Them as a Playground: Whenever you do an exercise and you don't like the outcome, I would like to invite you to see it as an opportunity to play instead of a failure. Because what better place is there to experiment on than something you don't like anyway, right? You could collage on top of the parts that you don't like and leave the bits that you are satisfied with uncovered. You could paint over the features that you really dislike. So for example, you paint over the eyes to convey that you are blind to the truth or something or you can cover up the mouth to express that you feel silenced, you can then put some text over that paint. You know, whatever comes to mind, just do it. What do you have to lose? Drawing that you already didn't like. So go for it. These surprise projects are a great way to discover new mixed media techniques or something that you would love to explore on purpose in a whole new different portraits or other kind of project. So relax and just draw and know that even when it doesn't work out as you wanted to, you can always do something exciting to it. Or, you know, you can be underwhelmed with that, as well. But it doesn't really matter. It is not about the end result. It's about the experience. And that's the whole point of this creative habit anyway. It's about gathering experience, finding out what you like, finding your way. It's not about making a perfect little sketchbook that you could put in a library in an exposition or something. Or maybe you could because it's cool to see our progress, you know, even if it's your own little library and private collection. It's really fun to look back at these sketchbooks and see where you came from and where you are now. Now, let me tell you what I'm doing here. I'm mostly observing shadows here for this face. First, I'm building it up by volume rather than a lot of lines. Here I'm observing the shadow underneath the mouth and the chin there with dimple in it. And when I think I have his expression, I am pressing harder where I can see stronger shadows on his face like this. I'm trying to find that ear, so I'm comparing the position with the features that I've already drawn, and that is how I establish its size and position. And I actually rather like this stage of the portrait with just the one color and different pressures that I put on my pencil. Things go south when I introduce different colors to it. It's just not to my liking, but I continue anyway because I'm a curious person, and I would like to see where it goes even when I don't particularly like it. I also don't like that I put a line around that ear. Immediately, it really stands out in a bad way. I'm creating his shirt with very loose lines. And I'm going to observe him for a little while longer. By the way, this portrait looks nothing like the reference photo when it comes to where his features are. So there's no likeness, but I did catch his expression and his contempt that I really liked in the reference photo. And that is what you want to accomplish in your little portraits. Just catch their expression. And when you're ready for it and you want to, you can always go for more likeness. And if you want to do that, you really need to pay attention to where all the features are on the face, the exact distance between them, and all the angles. And I am just not really interested in doing that because that doesn't matter to me. But if it matters to you, then go for it. But first, let's get used to portraits before we set such goals for ourselves. Just play for a little while. I'm already starting to like him a little bit less. I thought red would look better on there. But I just keep on going. You never know. Sometimes you dislike something in the beginning and later on, it will pull together. So if halfway through, you are not liking what you're doing, don't give up yet. Just keep practicing and hope for the best. I think that this might work better if I would do some hatching to create the shadows with the red on top of that yellow. So that might be something to try out with a different portraits. You know, don't give up on an idea just yet. Try different approaches and see if that can change up the vibe of your portrait in a good way. Just keep searching with an open mind to find ways of drawing that you enjoy. It might take a while before you figured it out, but, you know, it's no time lost because on the way you will just keep drawing and figure out the face a bit more with each and every drawing. Once again, I'm pressing a little bit harder there at the end around the features that I want you to look at most. So the mouth and the eyes, and here is where it starts to go wrong. Right now, there's you know, it's right. I'm putting more focus on those eyes. Nothing weird here. I do notice that my sea blue is making a green there where it touches the yellow, which makes sense. But I ended up not really liking that shade of green. Separating her lips. All good. Nothing horrible so far. But now I'm starting to go overboard. I don't really like that line on his jaw, on the ear as well. I'm trying to fix it by going over it with red which doesn't really help later on you'll see me go really heavy in the shadow area with my blue. Then I was really unhappy with it. You'll see. H Okay, time to play. Let's see if we can rescue this guy. I am taking some acrylic paint, my Titan green pill, fluid acrylics from Golden. And I can tell that this is not the right value. It is not light enough. I was hoping it would be, but no, but have no fear because titanium white is here. I didn't have that in the fluid acrylics, so I, I'm just taking my heavy body acrylics. And I'm putting it on there because I want some highlights. And it's very strong. So what I'm doing is I'm carefully dipping my brush in the water, and I'm trying to move around that paint. And it's alright, I guess, but I'm deciding to dip it some more because I always have to take it too far. And now the Stab al pencil is moving and mixing in with each other. And the colors will be a bit muddy, but, you know, I don't care. Let's see what happens. I'm moving my brush with the direction the skin would go, if that makes sense. See, so I'm going over that whole portraits, mixing all those colors, see what happens. I'm going to dip it again in my water, and I'm going over everything. And this lack of control is really liberating, and it can give you expressive results. So if you are using ink tense pencils or maybe watercolor pencils for your portraits and they feel a little bit stiff or overworked, I hope you will try this. And if you don't like it, you can go back in with the paint like I'm doing in a minute. And if you don't like that, you can go back with pencils again on top of that. And you can just layer and layer until either you're happy with it or completely done with it. It doesn't matter. Again, it's about the experience and trying out stuff. Right now I'm going in with a very watery acrylic paint to put the highlights back in there. And I rather enjoy that. I think it has really loosened up my portraits, and there's a certain energy to it right now that I'd lost before. So whenever you are really disappointed in one of your portraits, just use it as a playground and have some fun. I hope that you enjoy this inspiration. Let's go to the next video. 19. Your Turn: I hope you enjoyed all lessons, and I wish you lots of fun exploring them and filling up your brand new sketchbook. If you would like to explore portraits and drawing loosely further, you can check out my profile and have a couple of interesting classes for you. I have some charcoal classes on portraits and drawing loosely that I think you'll enjoy. And I even have one where I teach you how to create portraits with jelly plate. So if you have that at home gathering dust, then that would be a great way to get into it again. If you want to, you can share with me what you thought about this class by leaving a review. You can tell me what you enjoyed about the class or what you maybe missed and you would need some more explanation for. And that really helps me to improve my classes and to maybe create some mini classes along the way. You know, I'm always willing to accommodate you. If you tell me what you would like to learn, then I can see what I can do for you. But for now, I wish you happy creating.