Tips for Drawing Faces- Video.
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Your "mind" is responsible for most mistakes in portraiture. Everyone tends to distort things without knowing it. If your figures look distorted or are just lacking overall, then this video will help you.
This video will explore the "though process" that I use to draw faces accurately. We're going to look at the key things you need to get in place to ensure everything looks correct.
This first step will help tremendously with the rest of your drawing. We are building a quality outline that we can build on. This is our "foundation" for drawing faces.
Here is the finished drawing for your reference:
And here is the basic outline that we will be doing in the video:
Here is the video:
How to put this to work for you:
This video isn't so much about the "physical" way to do a drawing such as how to hold the pencil or how to put down strokes. The focus here is on what you should be looking for as you draw the face.
Drawing faces is all about observation. Look for angles, shapes, and tones. All the skills you have learned go into portrait drawing. It's a real test to see how well you have learned. The reason for this is because faces are very recognizable. Even an non-artist can spot mistakes easily. This is because faces are not abstract.
For example, if you do a drawing of a tree, who is going to notice if the leaves are all perfectly placed or that it is slightly wider than it should be? Probably no one unless you did a horrible job, but even then no one is going to compare your tree to the real one.
When drawing faces, we have to get everything right. Now, you can get a likeness of a person with minimal details. But those details still need to be accurate for it to work. The reason is needs to be accurate is because anyone who looks at the drawing will do a quick mental check to see if looks right. We do this naturally without even knowing it most of the time.
We recognize a person based on proportions and details in the facial features. Make a few simple changes to your drawing, and it will look like somebody else, so accuracy is key to getting it to look like the correct person.
Here's what you need to do to start getting better.
Work on your accuracy. Work on getting your proportions and values correct. This is necessary for both impressionist styles or realist styles. It doesn't make any difference.
So, study the other videos and written lessons. When you start improving your art overall, your portraits will get better too. And of course, practice drawing portraits. The more you do, the easier it will be to get them right. However, do not focus on quantity without quality. Try to learn from each drawing and get better with the next. Study the drawing and compare it to the reference picture you worked from. Figure out which parts you messed up. We all have tendencies to exaggerate or distort certain facial features. Maybe the chin is too big, maybe the eyes are too high, whatever. Be observant of your natural tendencies so you can fix them.
That's all for this lesson. I have more of these videos in my complete home study course that I'll be announcing soon. For now, just enjoy my free lessons.
Congratulations, you have completed this lesson and have taken one more step toward becoming a successful artist. Now is the time to practice what you have learned so it becomes natural. Soon, this will all become easier and more fun.
Follow up:
I have many more videos on portrait drawing in my complete art course if you wish more advanced study. You can watch me finish this series as well as the other portrait drawing walkthrough from the videos page.
Drawing faces is all about accuracy and proportion. Get those correct, and you are free to shade and color until your heat's content. Get those wrong, and your drawing will fail regardless of how well you shade and color. That's why I teach a strategic method to portraiture. First learn how to draw accurately, then start working on specific "portrait" techniques.
Everyone tends to distort the face in a certain way. This is because in our mind, we see the face differently than we see it with our eyes. Learn to see how you are distorting the face by studying the drawing after you finish it or as you go. Then, you can avoid making those mistakes next time. You can look at the drawing in a mirror, upload a photograph of the drawing and flip it with Photoshop, or you can just hold it up beside the original picture for comparison.
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