Drawing Faces & Portraits - Lessons from a Master Artist

Being able to consistently achieve a remarkable likeness in drawing faces and portraits can be learned. But there is a skill-set that must be acquired. The first is the ability to 'strike the arabesque', that is the entire outside shape of the head. The arabesque encompasses the overall shape and proportion.. From there, one constructs the portrait by fixing the facial proportions and then blocking in the initial tone. Even at this very early stage the likeness of the sitter will begin to emerge in the portrait drawing.

Using this photo as my reference (it is, of course, much preferred to learn portrait drawing from life) the 'arabesque' is struck. The critical issue here is the height/width proportion. Your 'eye' needs to be trained - there are exercises and practice drills for quickly training your eye. Failure to accurately strike the arabesque is the primary reason why many artists fail to acheive the likeness in their portrait drawing. Drawing the face is always secondary to the arabesque.



Once the overall proportions of the arabesque are satisfied, the facial proportions can then be fixed. (The methods for doing so are fully taught in my 2-DVD workshop Mastering Portrait Drawing.) Next is the initial blocking in of the primary light/dark values. This is a sculptural process best thought of as carving out the forms.

There are many ways of drawing faces and portraits, of course. I prefer the progressive, asymptotic approach, that is building up all of the forms simultaneously, rather than starting with an eye and growing it out like a bathtub fungus. Accuracy of proportion has to be the foremost consideration. Fine rendering is secondary.




To convincingly render the individual eyes, the artist must have an understanding of the anatomy and structure of each feature. This simply requires study to acquire the necessary knowledge. In the Mastering Portrait Drawing 1 DVD Workshop I've including the constructive anatomy of the head, succintly placed in the process of the portrait drawing so that the anatomy is immediately relevant and easily learned. It still takes work though.




In this close-up view of the face you can see how using mostly tone the eye is sculpturally carved out. In this 7/8's profile view you need to take care not to allow the far eye to 'bulge' out. (And yes, I do teach you how to do that. There's a little trick to it.)


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