How to Draw Faces (Dover How to Draw) Barbara Soloff Levy on Amazon.com.FREE. shipping on qualifying offers. By combining circles, ovals, squiggly lines, and other shapes, aspiring artists can create realistic portraits of young girls modeling a variety of hairstyles and hats. How to Draw a Face. Faces are the basic part of the human anatomy, and can display a wide variety of emotions. In a portrait or artwork of people, faces would be the main focal point, so each stroke has a significant effect on what mood is.
Why Learn How to Draw the Face
Human anatomy is one hell of an upward battle. So many things to learn, to draw, to retain. But taking it step by step you’ll be a pro in no time. This is one of our final steps in learning about drawing the head, now, we are just putting it all together.
If you haven’t seen How to Draw the Proportions of the Face, How to Draw the Head, or How to Draw the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Ears – you better get on those first before returning here.
Once you are ready to proceed, we can get started.
How to Draw the Face: Establishing the Guidelines
Like anything else in life, a strong foundation will create a greater structure. So, first, we need to lay down the brickwork to create a strong portrait drawing. For the broad strokes, we need to sketch out the shape and position of the head.
TIP: Using straight lines to ‘block-in’ measurements is a great reference point to start off with. You establish the most obvious straight lines that you can best observe. Then create sub-divisions between remarkable changes, such as light or shadows, and turns in major planes. Once you have the features of the example planned you are done, or you can start adding in details to develop it even further.
First, we have the shape of the head, including the position of the neck and jawline. This will imply the direction of the face and will be the size and shape we base the rest of our drawings off of. With a few more simple strokes we’ll have everything we need.
We are going to be adding in some construction lines, so If you haven’t learned about the basic proportions of the face you’ll have to check out our post. Notice above that we have the following guidelines
Outline of the face and jaw
Brow line
Eye line
Position of the nose
Indication of the mouth line
Ear height
If you are feeling stumped with any of these, I’ll mention again for you to go back and visit our post on Drawing Facial Proportions.
TIP: Developing the skills to structure a drawing base, is more important than actually being able to create a finished piece. It is the foundation that each and every piece of work you do will be built on and will make everything you do much stronger.
How to Draw the Face: The Eyes and Nose
Hopefully here, you will notice how our construction in the previous steps will guide us as we move forward. Along the eye line, we can place the eye shapes. It isn’t as easy to place features on the face when we are looking at it in the ¾. The front and profile seem to be easier. You can’t measure, you have to almost guess. If you haven’t studied up on eyes yet, you can learn more about them in our How to Draw Eyes post.
Here is where the reference and the base constructions really come into play. If you have constructed enough faces, the exact proportions will start to be easier, but in the meantime, practice makes perfect. Once you do 100 or more constructions of the face you’ll get the gut feeling of what is right, or if it isn’t, how to fix it.
Using the bottom point of the nose line, we fill in the shape of the nose. In the ¾ view, it holds pretty true to the profile view. The distances, relative spaces, heights and widths all change. But once you understand the separate pieces that you are trying to capture like the eye and nose you’ll be able to draw the features in every view.
How to Draw the Face: The Face, Brows, Mouth, and Ear
Once the basics are in, as well as the guidelines, the eyes and nose, we can move onto the remaining features of the face.
First, we establish the outline of the face, paying attention to the chin, cheekbone, eye, and brow. If you look closely, it is obvious that the top of the eye extends far beyond the line leading to it. This is because of the way the eye is shaped, the lids sitting upon the eyeball. It is its own shape and here you can clearly see it.
The brow is also a point to keep a close eye on. The brow bone tends to stick out a little compared to the rest of the forehead. It’s also important to know that the brow sits on top of the skin so it needs to be defined as well. The basic shape is all that is needed, individual hairs would be hard to see from here.
Our last element that has been established here is the shape of the ear. We already had the placement from a previous step but here we are defining its outer shape in the same way all the other features have been up until this point.
Shading the Face
The last step in drawing the face is to lay in the shadows that will only cement the structures you have established thus far. If you haven’t explored drawing the features you may have a hard time creating believable shadows. You can look at our other posts on drawing the features such as the eye, nose, mouth, and ears. You can also see or post on Shading the Face for more information.
The shadows are copied quite easily from the reference on the left, however, the shapes are hard to see. Being able to make use of this information provided, you must have an understanding of the features that are obscured to still provide an accurate depiction of the forms.
The light source is coming from the upper right, and slightly in front of the subject. All the shadows will be on the left-hand side, slightly behind her. Here you can clearly see the features that are in direct light, which of course are all on the forward right side. As the features of the face turn towards the left or blocked from view by the nose, details are shadowed.
Knowing the source and direction of the light can sometimes be all the information you need once you understand the forms of the face as you can picture the 3D forms and how they can interact with the light source. It’s important to know that light travels in straight lines, so you can use simple perspective to establish these boundaries.
TIP: In the video course, all of these steps were accomplished in less than seven minutes so doing quick studies is possible. Place the reference next to your drawing space, using the exact proportions in the image as in your drawing. Establish the boundaries in simple shapes as shown in step one. Slowly break down the steps by adding guides and progressively adding more detail until all of the elements have been drawn. Quickly move onto the next study to get as many done as accurately as possible.
ASSIGNMENT
Using the information and tip above, you are to create 15 portrait studies. Try to accomplish this as quickly as possible, while still assuring accuracy in the reproductions. Lay your reference to the side (left for right handed people, and right for left handed people) of your drawing area, break down the shapes of the face in the same way described in this post, adding features and practice then laying in shadows. Limiting yourself may help you accomplish this task, by restricting yourself to only ten or twenty minutes.
Learning how to draw profile faces for your fashion sketches and illustrations will give you more options in designing your new collections. Interesting model poses is one of the things that makes fashion designs look better. So understanding how to draw the profile is very helpful. Enough talking let’s start this step by step tutorial and have some fun!
Step 1: Draw the profile guidelines
Start with drawing two overlapping circles one above the other, as in the “How to draw fashion face” tutorial. Their centers should touch the outline of the other circle. Right next to the upper circle draw a third one. All the three shapes should have the same size in order to get good results with your profile drawing.
Tip: These guideline circles are very important and you are going to need them until the very end of the tutorial, so make sure everything is exactly as in the example illustration.
Step 2: Add curves
Using smooth curves connect the gap between the circles as shown. These will be the Front profile curve and the Top head curve.
Step 3: Eyes and nose
Draw a short horizontal line from the point where the first two circles overlap. This is where the eye is going to be placed. From the Center point of the bottom circle draw a horizontal line crossing the Front profile curve. Make a small circle lying on this horizontal line. This will be the nose tip. Mark another line above the Eye line. This is the Eyebrow line. The distance between those two lines is about the same as the nose tip diameter.
Step 4: Draw the profile nose
Follow the Front profile curve and draw the forehead until you reach the Eyebrows line. When you reach it – go in, until you reach the Eye line level. The Direction of this short line should be parallel to the big guideline circle next to it. Draw the nose of your model. Notice that the nose ends in the middle of the nose tip, don’t go any further.
Step 5: Nostrils
Draw inclined line touching the bottom circle and right above it put the nostril. In order to draw the nostril like shown in the example illustration, turn the sheet and make a regular question mark, without its point. Notice that the nostril touches the bottom circle too.
Step 6: More guidelines
Pull vertical guidelines from the most bulged part of the forehead and the end of the nostril. Draw a horizontal guideline from the bottom most point of the bottom circle. The point where the latter is crossed by the nostril line will be the end of the chin.
Step 7: Measurements
Connect the nose tip with the Chin point (2). The place where this slant line crosses the Forehead guideline is where we will have the Mouth centerline(1).Point (3) indicates the jawline. The Jawline point is on the horizontal level of the Mouth centerline and touches the guideline circle from the other side.
Step 8: Draw the mouth
Start drawing the upper lip with an “S”- like curve between the nose and the mouth centerline. Make sure that at least the half of this curve is following the incline of the nose tip-chin line. Draw a little circle below the mouth centerline point to indicate the lower lip. This little circle should fill the gap between the nose tip-chin line and the nostril line.
Step 9: Finish the mouth
Draw beautiful smooth curve to finish the upper lip and just hint gently the lower lip.
Tip: The rule of thumb is to line up the mouth corner with where the eye begins.
Join the Jaw line with the center of the circle as shown in the example illustration. This will show you what the incline of the ear should be.
Step 10: Chin and Jaw
Finish the chin where the chin point was. Notice that just below the mouth the chin slopes in, than it turns back in an angle (not a curve!) and then you continue with a smooth curve to finish the chin. Continue drawing the jawline. Look how the female jawline is not straight horizontal, but inclined, going towards the Jaw point, where it turn up and reaches the nose level. From the nose level up mark where the ear of your fashion sketch will be. The ear should be no higher than the Eyebrow line level, or it will look too big.
Step 11: Draw the eye
Profile eyes are different from front view face eyes. See the mini steps and place the eye on the Eye line. The size should be about the same at the visible part of the mouth. Draw the details of the ear and the cheekbone. The cheekbone will follow the curve of the initial big circles guidelines.
Step 12: Head and neck
When drawing a profile face you need to have in mind the form of the skull too. It is not enough to draw the features of your model only. Cut about ¼ of the side guideline Circle and outline the skull. Draw the eyebrows, pulling guidelines from the nostril towards the beginning and the end of the eye. Lastly, draw the neck of your profile fashion face. Notice that the neck begins after the bottom most part of the initial guidelines circles.
Tip: Notice that the neck is coming down as a slant. Please don’t draw it as two vertical lines.
Step 13: Draw the hair
Draw a hairstyle to suit the attitude and outfit of your fashion sketch. Make sure you have drawn the hairline correctly and enjoy your work.
One profile face – different looks.
Now you know how to draw the profile view of the face and you have so much more options for your fashion sketches. Check out also the tutorial “How to draw 3/4 view face” to gain more options and my online course “How To Draw Faces” where there are step-by-step tutorials on every possible view angle. Play with poses, haircuts and face expressions. Everything is in your hands now!