Tips for drawing portraits

Drawing is not the easiest thing in the world, it takes time and patience and often it just leaves you with a bin full of crumpled paper and a theory that you can't draw.


Now try add trying to draw a face, trying to capture the expression and get the drawing to even look the tiniest bit like the picture. Not exactly what you would define as easy ?


Practice makes perfect but drawing is for anyone, drawing portraits is for any one. The reward and result you get at the end will depend on how much time you spend doing it.


When artists put the time and effort into an art piece it is so rewarding and makes you feel satisfied and proud of what you have done.


So I am going to give you my top ten tips on how to draw portraits with a less stressful
and more rewarding environment.

• Start with a light sketch - often its hard to know the face proportions and its easy to mess them up so if you start with a light sketch its easy to rub out and modify
• Use a grid- this can be a little stressful and the first time may take while to get the grid perfect but by putting a grid on the photo your drawing from and then drawing that grid on your page it helps to perfect the proportions and to help you make the drawing look as like to the photo as possible
• Adding shadows - every face has textures and shapes and every shape has shadows. Shadows can make the drawing look professional and almost 3D. There are lots of simple ways to add shadows like just simply adding lines and smudging them with you finger or crossing the lines over to create the hatch method not only creating shadows but also giving the drawing texture.
• Use different shades of pencils- to create the shadows its useful to have different types of pencils like for example, HB, 2B, 3B, 4B and so on. my favourite pencils to use are the 2B, 4B and 6B.
• Draw the hairline after you outline- the hair is one of the hardest things to draw and its easy to mess up, I find it a lot easier to outline the face first and draw in the features and shade and then leave drawing and shading the hair till last so you can get the perfect proportions and the perfect angles for the face.
• Leave the last fine details to the end- even after finishing the hair leave the last finest details to the end and you portrait will be complete.
• Practice makes perfect- you cant expect to be Picasso after your first time drawing, starting off can be long and hard and very frustrating but the reward at the end is worth it and you will see a huge improvement from when you first started drawing till when you finish, remember you can only expect to get out what you put in.

You are your own individual artist so don't be frustrated when you work doesn't look like your friends or the artist beside you everyone has their own talent and their own style, you can do whatever you put your mind to.