ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment is to get inspired to create a pencil portrait! By doing this project, you will learn materials to use as well as how to pick the best reference photos. You will also learn how to accurately draw the portrait using gesture, correct proportions, and light and shade. By creating your project, you will be able to practice anatomy and shapes for drawing the eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and ears. While you draw, you will also discover the pencil techniques that work best for you.

DELIVERABLE

Share your project for feedback! Upload your finished portrait or share your work and experience as you go. Upload your art at any or all of these stages:

Practicing pencil techniques
Reference choices
Preliminary portrait sketches
Any works in progress
Eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and hair works in progress or practices
Finished drawing

MATERIALS LIST

Paper:

Canson Vellum Paper

Pencils:

0.3 Mechanical Pencil

0.5 Mechanical Pencil

Lead:

Erasers:

Blending Tools:

Additional Tools:

CLASS NOTES

Materials and Techniques

Get your materials
It’s important to have good materials from the start. I’ve come to realize the better materials you have, the quicker you will learn! If you have good tools, you will be able to spend more time actually learning the concepts. So you won’t be wasting time trying to get mediocre materials to do what you want them to do.

Here are the materials I like to use. I would recommend also experimenting though to find out what will work best for you.

Paper: Heavy weight bristol paper. I'd recommend: 100lb Canson vellum bristol, 9”x12” or 11”x14”

Pencils: Mechanical pencils, I'd recommend: 0.3mm Draft Line and 0.5mm graphite 925 Staedtler & Lead: Pentel lead refills 0.3mm 3H lead and 0.5mm 4B lead (If you can't find the exact leads, just be sure to buy at least one hard lead (2H-4H) and at least one soft lead (2B-6B))
Blenders: Tissues, toilet paper, q-tips, and tortillions or blending stumps

Erasers: Pink Pearl eraser (or any regular eraser), kneaded eraser, and Faber-Castell eraser pencil

Miscellaneous: Hard board to draw on (I use a piece of cut masonite board), scrap paper to put under your drawing hand, and a ruler
Practice your pencil strokes
Angle your pencil downward to make a smoother, broader line. It's difficult to make a nice, clean tone with the sharp tip of your pencil.

If you want something to look soft and smooth, you have to be thinking soft and smooth from the start. The blending tools won’t take care of everything.

Go back and forth quickly and neatly with your pencil, keeping each new line you make as close to the one before it as possible (without too many paper gaps showing through.) Keep practicing and this will become easier.
Practice the smooth pencil technique
Draw some clean strokes with your 3H lead and gradually make them darker by applying more pressure and by adding more layers to the darker part.

If you like to blend, it is good to use tissues and blenders instead of your finger because sometimes if you just use your finger, the oils from your hands can make dark spots on the portrait! No good.

This will work great for smooth skin. Make sure to blend light to dark.
Practice the textured pencil technique
Take your pencil and kneaded eraser and poke holes into the eraser. Now dab the eraser on your drawing. This will create a texture effect that works well for rough skin, certain fabrics, smoke etc.

Here I used the texture technique for the skin.

References

Pick an image with good lighting
For the lessons I’m teaching here to get a life-like portrait it’s best to have a reference with good light and shade rather than a “flat” image with no contrast. With an image having both light and shade you will be able to get a realistic, 3-D look. Plus, it will make your drawing more interesting.

Here are some examples of good references:

(Credit: CathleenTarawhiti Stock)

(Credit: CorneredRing-Stock)

Squint your eyes to see the light and shade better. Interesting lighting will make your drawing more special.
Look at the mouth
Big smiles look awesome in photographs! They are not always the best for drawing a portrait though. Teeth are difficult to draw and I’ve also heard it said that big smiles in portraits can start to look strange after a while, because no one in real life could hold a smile that long. If you would like to challenge yourself by drawing teeth, go ahead. It’s been done well before and it can be done well again.

A slight smile will do just fine. A soft smile or lips slightly parted are good for portrait drawings.
Find photos online or take some yourself
There are some great free stock websites as well as paid ones. Browse around the internet to see what you can find. You can also take your own photos. Experiment with different light set ups and try taking some of your family, friends, and of yourself. See what you can come up with!

The higher the quality, the better. Don’t torture yourself by working from a blurry photo.
Print out your reference
I like to work from a computer monitor sometimes, but I also like to have a print out of the reference. Also, it is best to work from a print that is the same size as your drawing. This will come in handy if you need help with proportions and need to measure.

(Work in progress, with print reference)

Proportions

Learn general head proportions
In a straight-on view:
- The eyes are located at the center of the head. Take the length from the top of the skull to the bottom of the chin and divide it in half- this will place the eyes.
- The face can be broken down into three relatively equal parts- From the hairline to the brows, brows to the bottom of the nose, and from the bottom of the nose to the chin. This idea will really help you if your portrait is not looking human. (If you are drawing someone with bangs, try to imagine where the hairline would fall by looking at the other measurements.)
- The bottom of the nose to the chin can be broken down into smaller thirds. The bottom of the nose to the crease of the lips is 1/3rd. The crease of the lips to the bottom of the chin is the remaining 2/3rds.
- The space between the eyes is about the width of an eye.
- The ears are placed on the same line as the brow line and the bottom of the nose.
As the head tilts this way or that, the perspective will change. However, these measurements are very helpful to know and commit to memory.
Use measuring tricks for accuracy
If you are struggling with an angle- With the reference and drawing standing upright next to each other, angle your pencil on top of the troublesome angle on your reference. Then with a locked arm, drag your arm to your drawing. The angle of your pencil will show you how much you need to change the angle in your drawing.

On your reference, lightly draw a vertical line straight down from any point to see what other points may line up with it. For example- dropping a line from the pupil straight down will often line up near the corner of the mouth.

When you start drawing, if something is looking off grab a ruler and feel free to measure! (This is when it is especially helpful to have a reference printed out that is the same size as your drawing.)

Sketching

Start sketching
Sometimes I find it helpful to do my sketches on scrap paper first, then trace the final sketch to good paper once it is a solid drawing. Doing your sketch on inexpensive paper may make you feel more free to make mistakes and erase.

When you erase too much on good paper, it ruins the tooth of the paper after a while. (Making blending more difficult.) So this is a good idea if you will be erasing a lot.

If you would like to trace your gesture to your good paper, you can do this by taping your two papers to a bright window. This will work like a lightbox.

If you would like to start right on the good paper because you feel confident enough, just draw with a lighter touch so you can easily erase things if needed.
Capture the action
Draw the head, neck, and hair to get the essence of the pose. Gesture drawing should capture the “attitude” of the head. Be sure to get the tilt of the head- Note if it is going up or down, tilted to the left or to the right, etc. Also, do you have a profile, 3/4 view, straight on view, or a pose somewhere in between? Recognize these things and draw it so.

Keep things simple and big right now. A big way to think about the head is to think of it like a ball with a jaw. Once you have that very basic concept, you can start looking at specific angles and the contour (the outline) of the head.

(As a note: If you are unfamiliar with any art terms used in this class, I would suggest putting the word in a search engine to learn more about it.)
Place the features generally
Once you have the head down, draw lines to place the eyes, bottom of the nose, and mouth line.

Sometimes I like to make the bottom of the nose a simple upside-down triangle and the mouth a smudge of tone or a line at the crease of the lips, to indicate where the lips will be. This makes it start to look like a face already. You can also bring a line down the center of the face, to help show the direction the face is pointing.

If you need help knowing where these things should be placed, refer back to the Proportions unit for general guidance.

Sometimes my gestures will start out looking like this:
Work until you like how the sketch looks
Work on the sketch until you are satisfied with it. If you don’t like how the proportions look now, no amount of shading and details will change that. So make sure you like your sketch enough before moving onward.

Planes and Light & Shade

Learn the big planes on the face
See the planes on the side of the face. Try looking at different photographs to see this as well as the examples below. You can find the planes by drawing 3 lines from the cheekbone (zygomatic) to
- the side of the masseter muscle
- the corner of the chin
- the canine tooth (where it would be if you could see through the lips)
Images from Drawing the Head and Hands, by Andrew Loomis

Image from The Human Figure, by John Vanderpoel

See the planes on the forehead. The forehead has a front plane and two smaller side planes. If possible, try to see these on your reference.

See the planes of the eye sockets. The eyes are protected by the brow ridge and they are on a plane that faces downward. Therefore, this plane where the eye sockets are, is often in shadow.

Each artist has a slightly different spin on how they portray these planes, but they are all similar. Likewise for every face- no two faces are the same so the planes will not be identical, but they will be generally alike.

Knowing these big planes will help you get started shading so you can capture the big light effect of your drawing. We will go into some of the smaller planes later.
Learn light and shade
Here you can see an example of how light and shade looks on a ball. This is a ball being hit by direct light. Direct light can be a light source such as the bright sun, a spotlight, etc. With direct light, it's easy to see the division of light and shade.

There is also a lighting condition called overcast light. This is the light you would see on a cloudy day. It is a soft, diffused light. In this lighting condition, you can not easily see light and shade. So it is sometimes more difficult. Softer light makes for a good portrait too, it just may be more challenging.

This is why I recommend you work from a photo reference that has good light and shade. It will make it easier to see what's going on and therefore easier to draw.

To make your drawing look realistic, it will really help to understand light and shade on a ball. These principles can be used in your portrait work as well. For example, you can think about the shading of the ball when you are shading the ball at the tip of the nose!

Light=
- Highlight
- Halftone
Shadow=
- Form shadow
- Form shadow core
- Reflected light
- Cast shadow
Nothing in shadow should ever be as light in value as anything in the light.

For pencil drawings:

Highlights will be the white of your paper.

Halftones can be made with a few layers of 3H pencil.

Form shadows should be rendered softly. As you work away from the halftone value in the light, gradually get darker and darker. The gradualness of this will ensure your form shadows will be soft. You can use 3H and 4B.

I use a dark lead like 4B when I draw cast shadows. Cast shadow edges should also be crisper than the form shadow edges.
Start shading your drawing with values

Try to keep the big planes in your mind while you begin to shade your drawing. Try to see the light effect that is occurring.

Using the pencil technique you learned earlier for neat strokes, begin to put down layers of value. In the darker areas, layer more and apply a bit more pressure to your pencil.

In the beginning, keep it as simple and basic as possible. While looking at your reference, squint your eyes and you will be able to simplify the values. Once you have the most basic light and shade, you can build upon that, breaking down light and shade even more.

The Eyes

Learn the parts of the eye
Study the eye and learn its parts so you can better understand how it all works. Check out some anatomy books to get more in depth.
Sketch the eyes and brows

Don’t start drawing the eye with a football shape. The eyes have angles- try to see them first and then smooth it out. You will get a more accurate shape this way.

To correctly place the iris (the colored part of the eye), try looking at the negative space shapes the sclera (the "white" of the eye) makes around the iris. Then make sure the upper lids cover the top of the irises. Unless you intend for your portrait to have a surprised look. If you show the sclera above the iris, the person will look shocked.

A lot of expression comes from the brows. If you find your drawing looks sinister, sad, or worried and you did not intend for them to look like this- tweak the brows until you get the proper expression.
Draw the eye using light and shade
Start drawing the eye using values. The eyes are protected by the brow ridge and they are on a plane that faces downward and therefore are somewhat in shadow. So feel free to put a light tone on the whole eye socket.

Now add the tone of the triangular shaped shadow depression between the nose and the inside corner of the eye. Work that tone right into the brow.

Then begin to shade the orbicular form shadow, making it round. (Sometimes this shading will be subtle. Other times it will be more dramatic, like in my demo here.) Allow your tone to get darker at the upper eyelid crease.

Draw the top lash line and place a value down for the iris. Then add the shadow of the lower lid and define the pupil, lashes, and eyebrow. Keep the white paper for the highlights in the eye or use your eraser to erase them out. Also, use your kneaded eraser to show the light in the iris.

The sclera or "whites of the eyes" will not be white! They will have a tone, and will be shaded under the top lid where the upper lid casts a shadow on the eyeball.

Tips for drawing eyelashes:

Use quick, confident strokes.

The Nose

Study the anatomy of the nose
Learn the parts so you can better understand the nose.

(Image from Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist, by Stephen Rogers Peck)
Think of the wedge form
Think of the nose in a big abstract way as a wedge with four surfaces- the upper surface, two side planes, and the base. These planes will help you simplify light and shade on the nose.

Image from The Human Figure, by John H. Vanderpoel
Draw the nose using light and shade
The whole nose will have a tone, so put a light tone using 3H pencil over the whole thing.

The light and shade on the planes of the nose will depend on the reference you are using. Try to find the wedge of the nose and leave light on the side planes or lightly shade the side planes of the nose, according to your reference.

The alar cartilage and the nose wings will have soft form shadows. Try thinking about light and shade on a simple ball to draw the “ball” of the alar cartilage.

Unless the head is lit from below, the bottom plane of the nose will be in shadow. There will also usually be a cast shadow right below the nose or there might be one being cast onto the cheek, depending on the light situation. Draw the cast shadow to start developing a life-like nose. Be accurate about your shadow shapes, as your accuracy will attribute you the likeness.

Add darker accents where the nostrils are and a highlight with your kneaded eraser for the highlight which is usually on the tip of the nose. (The nose highlight is sometimes shaped like an exclamation point- from the nose bridge to the tip of the alar.)

The Mouth

Know the forms
- The top lip has three forms. The middle one often looks like a heart.
- The bottom lip has two forms, which are teardrop shaped.
- At the corners of the mouth, you will find the nodes. They have a convex fullness to them and are a bean or comma-like shape.
- You can sometimes see a “W” shape under the lips. Be sure to keep the forms here and around the mouth convex.
See the tooth cylinder and planes
Take note of the tooth cylinder, located between the nose and chin. It looks almost like a tuna can. The lips lie on the rounded plane of the tooth cylinder. If you don’t take notice to the tooth cylinder, the lips will look flat.

(Image from Drawing the Head and Hands, by Andrew Loomis)

Another way to see the mouth is to try to see the planes. There is the forward facing plane and two side planes that will angle away, showing a simplified planes version of the tooth cylinder.

To see the planes simply, you can lightly draw this on your reference: Draw two lines, each starting at the septum of the nose, then through the sides of the philtrum, through the points of the tubercle (cupid’s bow), through the fullnesses of the bottom lip, and then to the corners of the chin. This will show you the front plane of the mouth.

If the face is lit from the front in a straight on view, the light on the side planes of the tooth cylinder will slowly diminish as they angle away from the light.

The whole front plane can almost look like a triangle.

(Image from The Human Figure, by John H. Vanderpoel)
Place the lips

1) Put down two dots to represent where the corners of the mouth will be. (Measure the distance between the dots for accuracy.)

2) Connect the two dots with a line which is the crease between the lips.

3) Add a tone on the whole thing.

4)Then, find and place the “cupid’s bow” and the shadow under the bottom lip.

This will help you easily place the lips.
Draw the lips with light and shade
Don’t outline the lips and color them in. This will look very flat.

Instead, put a value on both the top and bottom lip with your pencil. Then notice that the top lip is (most often) darker than the bottom lip, because the plane of the bottom lip will usually be catching light. Then there is often a cast shadow the bottom lip leaves on the chin below it.

You can see the planes of the mouth easily in a side profile view. The planes go in and out like a staircase. The planes that are facing down will be darker than the planes that are facing up towards the light. So you will often get this back and forth light and shade effect.
Draw the chin with light and shade
The chin continues the staircase planes the mouth also has. From side profile you can see- under the bottom lip, the planes go in, then back out for the chin, then in again, and then under. The chin has form shadow, so render the shading softly.

The Ear

Place the Ear
In a straight on view, the ears will be placed between the brow line and the bottom of the nose where the nose connects to the face. This will change as the head goes up and down though.

Ears will help indicate the direction of the head. If the ears are lower than the nose, it must mean the person is looking upward. If the ears are higher than the nose, it means the person is looking downward.

In a side profile view, you can see the ear is placed at the back of the jaw.

Images from Drawing the Head and Hands, by Andrew Loomis
Simplify at first
There are usually 6 main angles on the ear, and this is helpful to know when you are constructing one. Instead of drawing one line, think about the different angles first and then smooth it out. (Also keep in mind there are attached and detached lobes.)

If you break the ear into thirds, note that the concha is in the middle 2/3rds.
Study the anatomy
Study the anatomy of the ear and commit it to memory. Ears can have a lot of variation from person to person, but they all have the same anatomy. For art purposes, I would encourage memorizing these parts and their shapes in particular: helix (and leg), scapha, antihelix (and legs), triangular fossa, concha, tragus, antitragus, lobe.

Image from Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck
Draw the ears with light and shade
Render the anatomy forms you learned with light and shade. Don't make the ears have too much contrast though. They have so much design already. Keep them simple where possible. You don't want to take attention away from the eyes with an overly detailed ear.

The Hair

Draw the gesture with design and rhythm
Make sure you have the “flow” of the hair still from your gesture earlier. Think of the hair like it is flowing water.

You can also try using hair to point lines to the face. This will help design your composition. When someone looks at your drawing, if the hair is long and flowing for example, their eye should be able to easily follow the lines of the hair and have it lead them right into the face. Look for rhythms in the hair to point to the face- which is the center of attention in a portrait.
Remember these tips for drawing hair
- Look for big “S” shapes in the hair and group many pieces of hair together into clumps.
- Remember there is still light and shade on the hair. Just because a person is blonde, doesn’t mean everything will be light.
- Leave the edge where the forehead meets the hair soft and fuzzy. Otherwise, it might look like a wig.
- Don’t define the contour edge all around the hair. Leave some edges around the hair defined, but others soft and a bit blurry.
- For longer hair, the hair will hang closer to the head around the skull. Then it will flare out more when it gets to the ears and flows down and out.
- Don’t forget to think about the volume of the hair and draw with good design in mind.
Try these techniques for drawing hair
When drawing a clump of hair, draw the hair with quick, confident strokes. Go from the top to midway, then from the bottom to midway. This works great because it will create a highlight where the strokes meet.

If you want very fine hairs, before you draw anything- take the metal tip of your mechanical pencil (with no lead in it) and draw some quick hair lines on your paper. You can’t really see them yet, but this will leave indents on your paper. Then start to draw the hair normally and you will see very faint, light hairs becoming visible. This is a very neat effect if you want detail in your hair.

You can also sharpen your eraser pencil and erase out flyaway hairs.

Drawing Tips

Get a new perspective
If you are having trouble with your piece, try looking at it in a new way:

Step back Always try to step back and look at your work from a distance. Throughout the whole process and especially at the end. This will give you a different take on things. Also, if something looks wrong from a distance, the drawing often needs something to be simplified and taken out. Rather than adding more details that will complicate.

Turn it upside down You will see new shapes when you turn your drawing upside down. This can be very helpful if things aren't going well.

Reverse the image Try looking at your drawing in front of a mirror. Then you will be able to see the reverse image of your drawing. When you do this, you will be able to spot mistakes in proportions very easily.
Use your artistic license
Get rid of things in the photo reference that are distracting or don’t make sense. Not everything from a photo needs to be copied into your drawing. I used to want to copy every little detail the photo told me. But when I realized I didn’t have to do that, it made my work a lot better. You are the artist and you get to pick and choose what you want in the drawing and what you think is better to leave out.
Put the focus on the eyes
As I mentioned before, the eyes are most often the center of attention. So make them the thing that is most in focus and make everything else slightly less focused than them. This will make the eyes really special. Use lines in the hair, clothes, etc. to point the viewer of your drawing to the main thing. The face (and eyes).
Vary your edges
When I discovered the power of edges, it really changed my work. Not everything has to be outlined with exact detail. Sometimes leaving say the edge of a shirt, or the edge of part of the hair soft and blurry can really make the drawing begin to read as real! There is a lot of beauty in a soft, misty edge.
Tell a story with the light
Make sure the lights in the drawing are connected to each other and that the shadows are connected to each other and that they make sense. Make the light “tell a story.”
Practice and learn new things
Finally, if you like portraiture and want to improve, always remember to practice and be eager to learn. Draw from life, photographs, copy the old masters and even draw from your imagination. You will grow and gain knowledge with every new drawing you make!! :)

Progression from 1999 to 2009

Additional Resources

Art Materials
Pentel lead refills
Understanding pencil grades
Cathleen Tarawhiti Stock
Corneredring-stock
Planes of the Head
Drawing the Head and Hands Andrew Loomis
The Human Figure
Drawing the Head

Shop my favorite art supplies and books on Amazon! :) (I am an Amazon Affiliate, but I am addicted to art supplies. These are genuinely my favorites!)

Elena Fay

Watercolor Artist & Fashion Illustrator

2,291

14