How to draw a woman's portrait with a pencil. How to draw a person's face with a pencil


The topic of this article is devoted to how to draw a portrait with a pencil step by step for beginners. Each of us is looking for a convenient way to depict what he sees. Therefore, I want to offer an option on how to draw a portrait of a person, be it a loved one, or a person sitting opposite on the train, or it will be portraits of celebrities. In this version, there is only one rule - simplicity.

And today is a training lesson. We will draw a person’s face with a pencil step by step, a person whom you see every day; you are used to “working” a little on his appearance, trying on makeup or a smile, severity or tenderness. We draw the face you know as your reflection in the mirror.

But first, let's get a mirror and look at ourselves like for the first time. All people are similar, and at the same moment different, and you are no exception. What makes us similar? Every healthy person has two eyes, a mouth, a nose, ears, eyebrows, and hair arranged in a hairstyle. What makes us different? The shape, size and location of these “details” of human appearance. So, a portrait is a kind of collage or puzzle of several passages, which we will “break down” into the plan of our work: Eyes; Mouth; Nose; Ears; Brows; Hair (hairstyle) and oval face.

And all this has its own shape, size and its own proportions of location on the face. This is what makes each of us “one of a kind” and unlike anyone else. And, if we are learning to draw a portrait of a certain person, then it would be good to first pay attention to the shape and type of each element of the face in detail. And only after this our final goal, and this is a portrait with colored pencils, will become more accessible.

Eyes

We will first practice depicting all the details with a simple pencil. And also, please note, I draw myself and my eyes. You can practice drawing mine for now, but this will be an intermediate step on the way to understanding how to learn how to draw portraits with a pencil.

Step 1

Here we will draw an arc with a pencil. At the same time, pay attention to its shape. It is extended until the middle, and then “rolls” down.

Step 2

The lower arc is almost perfect. It is smaller than the top one.

Step 3

We connect the arcs and perform the upper eyelid.

Step 4

Cornea and lower eyelid.

Step 5

Eyelashes appear on the upper and lower eyelids and the pupil.


Step 6

We make small folds near the eyes and mark the places where the shadow falls, making the eye seem voluminous.

Lips

How to draw sponges correctly? Just 5 steps and your lip drawing is ready.

Step 1

We start with a wavy line.

Step 2

Above the wavy line we draw the upper sponge.

Step 3

We complement the drawn mouth with a lower sponge.

Step 4

We connect the edges of the lips and some folds of the lips.

Step 5

We create a chiaroscuro effect and do not forget about the folds in the corners of the lips and on the chin.

Nose

How to draw a portrait of a person if you don’t learn how to draw one of the most difficult details, the nose. We do this step by step.

Step 1

We draw parallel lines - this is the width of the nose.

Step 2

The two lines end with the original “capsule”. This is a widening of the nose.


Step 3

We depict the nostrils.

Step 4

Shading for a chiaroscuro effect.

Step 5

To make the shadow look natural, we even it out a little.

Ears

Another element that is sometimes forgotten when covered with hair. But our pencil portrait for beginners provides it step by step. What is this? Ears.

Step 1

The shape of the ear is similar to an arch. Let's do it.

Step 2

We perform the upper part of the auricle, the helix and the tragus.

Step 3

We make an anti-curl. A lobe appeared, which means I didn’t forget about my jewelry – the earring.

Step 4

I do the cheek, neck and hair.

Brows

Drawing a portrait also includes such details as eyebrows.

Step 1

Some find it convenient to do this first with an arc, and then each hair separately. And for some, it is more interesting to immediately draw the shape of the eyebrows, making them with abrupt lines.

Step 2

We correct the shape and thickness of the eyebrows.

Hair (hairstyle) and face shape

Having examined each individual detail, it is easier for us to understand how to draw a portrait with a pencil. And yet, I will show you the image of a person’s face in stages.

Action 1

My face is round in shape. And this is what I try to portray.

Act 2

I mark where the neck will be and the shape of my hairstyle.

Act 3

I draw the hair in more detail.


Well, we have learned to work on each detail separately. Time to put the puzzle together. Let's talk about having a pencil person.

Angle

Before we get a portrait with colored pencils, we again draw the portrait from scratch. But what else is important to know about depicting people? The fact that you can make a person's face in different ways. For example, if the model is sitting directly in front of us, her body and head itself are positioned straight, and her eyes are looking directly at the artist, then this angle is called full face.

Profile – if the model is located sideways to us.

How to draw a portrait of a person who is sitting half-turned to us? And what is this work called? This is three quarters. This angle is very convenient for a romantic and informal image. It brings out the beauty of the eyes and lips. This is exactly what we will choose to make the first pencil portrait from a photograph.

Working on an image from a photograph

First, you should choose a photo of a suitable model to draw a portrait from a photograph. And now let's do the work step by step.

To understand how to draw a person’s face, let’s divide everything into stages.

Stage 1

We make an oval face with a pencil.

Stage 2

This pencil work for beginners involves auxiliary lines that will help maintain the proportions of a person's face when drawing a portrait outline.

Stage 3

Thanks to the diagram, we mark where the eyes, nose and other organs will be. We perform these facial details step by step.

A little more detail:


Eyes and eyebrows


Nose

Stage 4

Now, to make our pencil portrait from the photo look more believable, we erase all the auxiliary lines and pay attention to the hair. Don't forget about the effect of chiaroscuro.

Stage 5

It's time to make a portrait with colored pencils to bring it to life.

Test lesson

It's time to move on to checking what we have learned and continue talking about how to draw your portrait. I hope the portrait drawing lessons were not in vain for me, and I will be able to believably draw myself as a real beauty!

1) Oval face.


2) Auxiliary lines to maintain proportions.


3) Schematic representation of all elements.


4) We make a portrait with colored pencils.




The lesson has been learned and reinforced. As for me, the result is not bad. We can safely say that we have understood how to draw a portrait with a pencil. And if necessary, we will use our new skills.

To draw a portrait of a person with a pencil, beginning artists do not necessarily have to complete courses or become students art academy or take private drawing lessons. Drawing a person’s face is not difficult, the main thing is not to be lazy and develop your skills.

The main thing in the article

Do-it-yourself pencil portrait of a person: what will you need?

To draw a portrait of a person you will need:

  • simple pencils;
  • a sheet of white A4 paper;
  • eraser;
  • stationery knife;
  • scotch.

Learning to draw portraits of people with a pencil: where to start?

There should be no unnecessary objects on the work surface. Take a sheet of white paper, place it vertically or horizontally in front of you and secure it at the edges with tape. Remember that you cannot tilt the sheet while drawing. You only work with your hand.

Use a pencil from Koh-i-Noor medium soft HB or soft B.

An improperly sharpened pencil affects the quality of the drawing. Do not sharpen pencils with a sharpener, but use a utility knife. This method of sharpening a pencil allows you to expose the rod as much as possible and make it sharp. By properly sharpening a simple pencil, you will be less distracted from the process and draw longer.

For training, use a regular sheet of A4 paper. In the future, if you like to draw, buy professional drawing paper, such as drafting paper, kraft paper.

How to learn to draw a portrait of a person with a pencil?

To begin, take a photo of the person whose face you want to draw. Look at it carefully. A person's face on a piece of paper consists of geometric shapes, which change their shape during the drawing process. Remember that people's faces are disproportionate. Therefore during detailed drawing parts of the face, this must be taken into account.

To learn how to draw a portrait of a person with a pencil, you need to make sketches on paper.

How to draw a portrait of a person with a pencil for beginners step by step

The process of drawing a person's face with a pencil can be divided into the following stages:

  • drawing the general contour of the face;
  • marking the main parts of the face inside the oval;
  • drawing eyes;
  • drawing eyebrows, drawing nose and mouth;
  • detailed drawing: wrinkles, shadows, moles, hair, etc.

Getting started: building the head and general contour of the face

To draw correctly general outline face, you need to know quite a bit of human anatomy. To begin, draw an oval, which will be narrower at the bottom than at the top. Next, change the outlines individually.

Marking parts of the face and working with planes

Full face

  1. The skull and jaw are a flattened sphere; to put it roughly, the face in this position resembles a chicken egg, turned with the narrow part down. Draw such an oval and draw two perpendicular lines through its middle.
  2. The horizontal line is the eye line. Divide its right and left parts in half. This will be the middle of the eyes (pupils).
  3. Divide the lower part of the vertical line into 5 equal segments. The tip of the nose will be located at the 2nd mark from above, and the mouth will be located between the 2nd and 5th marks.
  4. Divide the upper part of the vertical line into 4 equal segments. The hair should be on 2 sections from above. The bottom of the ears should be at the level of the tip of the nose, and the top should be at the level of the eyelids.

Artists use small tips to draw portraits:

  • the width of the face consists of 5 segments equal to the width of the eyes;
  • the distance between the eyes is approximately equal to the width of one eye;
  • The width of the chin is equal to the length of the eye.

These standards are adjusted individually.

Profile

  1. The profile also resembles an egg in shape, but its sharp part is shifted to the corner.
  2. Divide the drawn figure with two perpendicular lines.
  3. The ear is behind the vertical line. The depth of the skull is drawn individually.
  4. The correct location of the nose, eyes, eyebrows has already been discussed in the “Full Face” subsection.

Detailing the face: drawing eyes, contours of eyebrows, nose, lips, ears

Eyes

Since the shape of the eyes is different for each person, it is impossible to accurately describe this process. The middle of the eye is already marked. Now draw two arcs on the right and left, which you will later “turn” into eyes.

Key points to pay attention to when drawing eyes:

  • the outer part of the eye is always slightly higher than the inner part;
  • the arches of the eyes are rounded closer to the inside of the eye and narrowed to the outside;
  • if a person looks straight, then the iris of his eye is always slightly covered by the upper eyelid;
  • eyelashes always begin to draw from the eyelid;
  • the lower eyelashes are always shorter than the upper ones;
  • do not forget that the tear ducts, lower and upper eyelids should be drawn around the eye.

Very often, beginners, having drawn one eye, stop looking at the photograph and copy the second eye from their drawing. Don't forget that people's faces are not proportional. The second eye will be a couple of millimeters wider/narrower, higher/lower. The eyelid above the right eye may be lower than that above the left. All these little details must be carefully copied from the photograph.

If you draw a face in profile, then the eye here will resemble the shape of an arrowhead with convex and concave sides. The iris is hard to see from the side, but when drawing a portrait, you need to draw it so that the eye does not look strange.

Brows

The widest part of the eyebrow is often closest to the bridge of the nose. Don't start drawing the hairs right away. Define the shape of the eyebrows. If you draw a face in profile, then their shape will resemble a comma.

Nose

The easiest way to draw a nose is illustrated in the picture. Draw a circle, then add wings and “backs” to it. At the very end, all that remains is to outline the nostrils with a pencil.

There is a more complex but realistic way to draw this part of the face. As shown in the picture, draw a polyhedron. The shape of the polyhedron changes depending on the position of the face. Next, start rounding the geometric shape.

Lips

Start drawing the lips from the inside line, where the lower and upper lips meet. This line will never be perfectly straight; it always consists of several curved lines.

The inner line of the mouth is always darker in the drawing than the outer contours of the lips, and the upper lip is often smaller than the lower.

If you draw a face in profile, then never draw the tip of the lip sharply upward. Draw the middle line of the lips first straight or down, and then lift it up.

Ears

The human ear can be represented in the form of the letter C. Do not forget that the ear has a rim and an inner part that resembles an arc, and a lobe. Be sure to draw these main parts of the ear.

Hatching and halftone development

It seems that you are already at the finish line, but the portrait is completely unrealistic. Hatching and working out halftones is something you can’t do without when drawing a portrait of a person.

First of all, determine where the light falls on your face and where the darkest places are. Apply strokes to the face in one direction - from top to bottom. To give the skin a matte look, blend the lines with your finger or a regular napkin. To lighten areas in the portrait, use an eraser.

Highlighting and darkening areas of the face

Highlighting and darkening areas of the face is necessary to make the face on a sheet of paper look voluminous and not flat:

  • If you need to lighten an already painted area, use an eraser.
  • Start sketching out areas of the face with light lines. Don't press too hard on the pencil.
  • Apply lines in layers. The more lines, the darker the area of ​​the face will be.

How to draw portraits of people with a pencil from different angles: full face, profile, head turn

We figured out how to draw the full face and profile of a person.

  1. If you draw a person from the back, then you may not be able to see all parts of his face.
  2. When the face is turned almost in profile, the midline of the lips is very small, the line of the neck merges with the line of the chin. Also visible is part of the cheek, behind which the person's nostril is shown.
  3. When a person’s back is turned almost to you, you can clearly see the line of the eyebrows, the cheekbone, the line of the neck, which tends to the ear (if this part is not covered by hair).
  4. When you turn a person's face more, you see eyelashes, a small part of the eyebrow, the ridge of the lower eyelid, and the tip of the nose.

How to draw a portrait of a person correctly with a pencil: the basics and secrets of the skill

  1. The focus should be on the person's eyes.
  2. Try to draw not only the head, but also the shoulders, neck decoration, collar, etc.
  3. Never start drawing small details without correctly marked outlines.
  4. When tracing the contours, do not press hard on the pencil, draw with barely noticeable lines.
  5. Please pay attention special attention proportions of the human head.

How to draw a portrait of a person with a pencil: video tutorials

The person whose portrait you decide to draw will definitely appreciate your efforts. You can give such a gift to yourself. If you are afraid of the amount of work ahead, practice drawing individual parts of the face. In the future it will be easier for you to draw a portrait of a person with a pencil.

Many people find an outlet in drawing. Some want to become professional artists, but for others it is just a favorite hobby. This article will tell you how to draw a portrait with a pencil step by step for beginners. Why do people draw portraits anyway? Some people just really like the person they want to draw. Others are interested in trying themselves. The third one wants to impress. But this all applies to adults.

But many children want to congratulate their mother on the holiday or simply make her happy. They get the idea to draw her portrait with a pencil. After all, such a gift will be pleasant, remembered for a long time and will take its place in the house. Not all children study at art school, but I want it to the drawing was done correctly and pleased with its beauty. Therefore, here we will tell you a lesson on how to gradually depict a person’s face on paper. And since you can draw anyone, even if it’s your mother or your favorite actress, this lesson will be useful to a variety of people.

Even beginners should do well and quickly learn portrait techniques. And all because the children really like the chosen object for drawing and they want to please someone with it. This is the best motivation.

Where to start drawing a portrait? First steps

To learn how to draw a portrait, you need to move from simple to complex. The human head in the picture has only three angles: full face, profile and half-turn. First, you should try to learn how to correctly depict a person’s face from the side. After this, it will become much easier to write it from the front.

It is worth remembering that the faces of men and women are slightly different. When drawing a portrait of a man, you should use more hard, clear lines. In a portrait of a woman, they should be abandoned, giving preference to softer, smoother and more feminine ones.

First, you should draw the frame of the future portrait with a pencil. Display the shape of the head, the approximate distance between the chin and the back of the head, the distance between the eyes. At the same time, one should not forget about scale, proportions and other facial measurements. Pencil strokes must be made thin and light so that they can be corrected at any time.

After you have managed to draw the basis of the future portrait, you should begin to depict the facial features. To avoid a distorted image, you need to constantly check the drawing and the model.

Once the different parts of the face have been marked step by step, you should highlight those parts that protrude, namely forehead, cheekbones, chin. In general, you should pay attention to the features of a person’s face and try to convey them. Be it the thickness of the lips, the height of the forehead or the location of the eyes.

Hairstyle should be given special attention, because it is a component of a person’s image, style and perception. You need to draw it with long strokes, darkening the hair at the roots, thereby giving it volume.

To complete the drawing, you need to erase the extra wireframe lines and start working on the details. Skin, hair, shadows and light. All this should be conveyed in a pencil drawing. Pencil strokes, which become lighter or darker when pressed, will help with this. The background needs to be drawn dark strokes, pressing on the pencil. This must be done so that the person stands out and is in the foreground. You should pay attention to individual characteristics, the highlight of a person and convey them on paper.

Portrait artists have golden rules for drawing a face, called the standard:

  • eye line - a segment in the middle between the top of the head and the chin;
  • the line of the nose runs between the eyebrows and to the chin;
  • the segment between the nose and lips is divided into three parts: on the bottom line of the upper part there will be the beginning of the lips;
  • the head should also be divided into three equal parts, the uppermost will indicate the hairline, the middle - the eyebrows, and the bottom - the nose.

How to draw eyes?

Special attention should be paid to drawing eyes, since they are the mirror of the soul and are very important when depicting a person. Where to start:

  • draw two ovals;
  • inside them there are two more - the iris and the pupil;
  • draw eyelashes, not straight sticks, but arched from the eyelid to the eyebrows, thicker at the corners and short at the beginning;
  • hatch so that the edges of the iris are darkened, and highlights are indicated on the pupil.

Portrait in pencil




Drawing lessons on the Internet

IN modern world, even if a person has not studied drawing in an art studio and is a completely beginner artist, all is not lost for him. After all, in the age of the Internet, many artists work completely free of charge. post drawing lessons online. Step by step photos with images of each step, training videos. All this will help you master the skill and learn how to draw beautiful portraits. You just have to find the appropriate video or blog, and then even beginners will begin to produce beautiful paintings.

No matter how interesting and useful the article is, not everyone is able to perceive what is written with ease; for many it will be easier to see it than to read and try to understand it on their own. Drawing from the tutorial will be quite simple and fun.

It's worth remembering that a real artist– this is someone who cannot imagine his life without drawing and holds a pencil in his hands every day!

When there is a desire to draw something with a pencil, we are driven by our mood, imagination, inspiration and associations. Of course, every novice artist remains satisfied if he successfully drew what he wanted and is satisfied with the result, and strangers understand what he wanted to convey. However, there are situations when artists find themselves in the place of the main character of Exupery’s work “The Little Prince” Pilot. Having drawn a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant, he was outraged that those around him thought: “This is a wonderful hat, not a boa constrictor!” This situation is relevant among most beginning artists. And so that you don’t end up in the place of the Pilot from “ The Little Prince", we will show you how to convey your plans with a pencil so that you get a recognizable result.

When drawing various items Certain difficulties arise, but drawing a recognizable portrait is one sheer difficulty for many. In this lesson I will show you how to draw a portrait step by step without unnecessary complex designs.

What you will need:

  • a simple pencil with a hardness from H to 2H;
  • a simple pencil with a hardness from B to 8B;
  • sheet of paper;
  • eraser.
  • Take a pencil with a hardness from H to 2H. Divide the sheet horizontally into two parts so that the bottom is almost twice as large as the top. At the intersection of this division, draw two straight lines to place the eyes between them. By the way, the distance between the eyes is equal to the length of one eye (everything said is illustrated in the picture).

  • Draw two straight lines from the corners of the eyes down to indicate the width of the nose. Draw the eyelids and eyebrow shape.

  • Drawing a portrait with a pencil is not difficult if you follow our examples in pictures and recommendations. We move on and draw the rest of the nose, marking the lips.

  • Now outline the approximate boundaries of the forehead and the contours of the face as a whole. In order to avoid unnecessary mistakes, measure by eye, for example, with a pencil, how many times the height of the forehead will fit in the distance (plane) from the eyebrows to the lips. If you are painting a portrait of a specific person, then you can measure something with a pencil at arm's length, closing one eye, focusing either on the pencil or on the object itself. If we're talking about about a portrait from a photograph, then you can take measurements either by applying a pencil to the photograph, or by also raising your hand. When it becomes clear, for example, that the distance between the eyes will fit the length of one eye, then you check these parameters in your drawing using a pencil.

Advice: You can apply a similar method of measurement to any element in the drawing.

  • You are probably wondering: how to draw a portrait of a person step by step so that he seems to come to life. To do this, we move on to the next stage in our work - we take a simple pencil with a hardness from B to 8B. With this we begin to draw the eye area, namely: start with the pupil, but do not forget to leave highlights on the eyes - white, unpainted dots (they create the effect of volume and naturalness of the picture). Darken the corners and draw a dark line in the eyelash area. Draw the main shadows around the eyes. BUT! Do not press too hard on the pencil.

  • Sharpen the pencil you used to draw the shadows well and use light but sparse strokes to draw hairs on the eyebrows. And here, too, you need to follow the laws of light and shadow: when drawing the lower part of the eyebrow, press the pencil harder, in this way a shadow effect will be created; in the middle part and on the sides, try not to put too much pressure on the pencil and make the strokes lighter. At this stage, we also begin to draw a shadow in the nose area. Here you need to be especially careful, because the shadow on the nose creates its shape. So follow the example in the picture.

  • To draw a portrait yourself, you need to have perseverance, so we hope that you are not tired and continue to make the portrait three-dimensional! Let's move on to drawing the shadow on the lips: the lightest part is the middle of the lower lip, and the darkest is the area under it.

In order to take a closer look at an example of how to draw lips and a nose, look at our other articles devoted to this: “, .

  • The time has come to draw the hairstyle. For some this task is difficult, but for others it is not. One way or another, we will tell you how to draw hair so that it appears most believable in a portrait! In order to beautifully draw a portrait of a girl, it is important for novice artists to remember: 50% of the success of your work depends on drawing the hair. And we are not talking about the main hairstyle and curls, but even about the small hairs that you see near the forehead. The roots of long curls begin a little higher from them. To draw the hair, we must sharpen the pencil again (B-8B). Here we can no longer make strokes at different angles - each line must follow the growth of the hair and the shape of the hairstyle. From the roots of the hair the hair rises a little (and therefore the line too), and then we make not just even downward strokes, but as if we are drawing them in waves. The places where the curls intersect should be darkened (to create a volume effect). It is very important to also draw the hairs that stray from the hairstyle. To do this, we again sharpen the same pencil and carefully, with a quick movement, draw the hairs that naturally stick out from the hairstyle.

Why is it important to do this with a quick movement of the hand: the slower we draw the lines, the more unnatural they will look due to unevenness. After all, even a heartbeat or our breathing can prevent us from drawing a straight line with a pencil..

When making messy hair, the main thing is not to overdo it. After doing the hair work, add shadows on the neck, as well as wherever the hair lays on top.

Well, I showed you how to draw a portrait of a person for beginners. I hope this photo lesson was useful for you and will help you get rid of the unloved and difficult stages of drawing portraits. In the article, I did not focus on the detail of drawing the eyes, nose and lips, because this is what previous articles were devoted to.

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where to start drawing a portrait of a person step by step? how to learn to build a person's face. How to correctly place penumbra and achieve the desired similarity in pencil portraits. How to shade a portrait correctly. The artists will tellWORKSHOPPORTRET-ART.

Most portrait artists working in the pencil technique worked in various schools, where they learned the skill of depicting a person. All artists, based on their education, created for themselves their own basis for how to work on creating a portrait. In this article we will share our own secrets of the most common drawing technique.

getting started and building the head

The artists of our workshop work with mechanical pencils, because... they ensure cleanliness while working; unlike classic pencils, they do not need to be sharpened for a long time, they allow you to deal with small details much faster. To draw a high-quality portrait, we will need a “nag”; this is an artistic eraser with which you can correct your mistakes and not spoil the portrait. To draw with a mechanical pencil, we need leads. We recommend using softness rods HB, B, 2B, 4B and 7B (where B means soft and H means hard). Now we need to take a regular A4 piece of paper and place it under your working hand so that it covers the surface that you have already shaded.

First of all, you should study the photograph, namely the general appearance of the head, how it is rotated relative to the horizontal and vertical. To draw a portrait of a person correctly with a pencil, we need to know some features of the structure of the skull. This can be seen in any anatomical atlas. Based on the shape of the head of the person you are depicting, you need to draw on the paper with light lines the general contour of the hair, the oval of the face and indicate the line of the lips, nose and its height, eyes and eyebrows.

working with planes


Now that the general lines have been drawn, we can move on to analyzing the planes of the face. We must indicate the height of the nose with a plane (if desired, it can be shaded to see the volume, this can be done with all areas in the shadow), the plane of the cheekbone, which is closest to us, the plane of the lips and the plane of the eyes, connecting to the eyebrows. At this stage, we do not draw out the face with smooth lines, we try to very easily outline the geometric features of the person’s face.

face detail


At this stage of the work, we take the nag and, moving it along the plane of the sheet, remove the top layer of the pencil, that is, we make the lines drawn before almost invisible. This is the difference between drawing portraits from photographs and academic portraits; in the second case, the construction lines are drawn and will remain in the final form of the portrait, which is why it can turn out dirty. This doesn't suit us. After we have made the construction lines invisible where necessary, we begin to draw out all the facial features, round them and give the face a resemblance to the photograph. In order to achieve similarity, you can measure the sizes and their relationship to other face sizes, thereby selecting the optimal proportions. For example, how much width of the nose fits into the width of the face, etc. You can measure anything, there are no restrictions here.

start of shading


To begin shading, you must complete all constructions and erase all unnecessary lines in the drawing, because Once you start laying the tone, you won't have the opportunity to do it neatly. There are no uniform rules for shading; each artist does it in the way that is convenient for him. This may depend on how you are used to holding a pencil/pen, whether you are right-handed or left-handed, etc. We recommend starting shading from the darkest areas of the portrait. Since you can later build on them without darkening your skin, clothes and eyes too much.

halftone development


Next, we must move on to halftones, that is, add tone to the skin of the face, hair and clothes, if they are not black, since black clothes are often worth emphasizing (even if the clothes white, there will definitely be partial shade on it to reveal relief and texture). At this stage, we should not wipe anything with nags (unless we have made a stain or smeared something). It is worth starting intensive shading of halftones (if you are right-handed) from the left top corner sheet so as not to smear with your hand what you have already done, and accordingly, if you are left-handed, you need to do everything in a mirror. At this stage, fine detailing of the background of the portrait is allowed.

working with highlighting


When you're done with the shading, you should have a nearly finished portrait, but it won't look 3D. Don't be upset, one of the most enjoyable stages in drawing a portrait with a pencil is the stage when you highlight the most bright places on the face. Most often this is the tip of the nose, the whites of the eyes, the upper part of the cheekbones, the brow ridges, the lower lip and in some cases the chin. Also, with the help of a nag, you can draw folds on the lips and small wrinkles that will make your portrait more alive. Hair needs to be lightened at the largest breaks in the shape, then it appears shiny and alive.

darkening the depths and cleaning


After highlighting, you need to darken again the places where you want to show space, these could be: the neck, the edge of the hair, ears, folds in the hair, the background. With the help of this darkening, we will feel that the person we are drawing is not “glued” to the sheet, but is looking from there. This is very important factor creating a portrait with a pencil.

Our portrait is already ready. But you will definitely have some unnecessary strokes or stains from your fingers, because they will be stained into the pencil (by the way, in order to avoid a dirty portrait, we advise you to wash your hands several times and dry them thoroughly), so you should take the nag last once and wipe away everything that is visually unpleasant to you. Even if a portrait is absolutely similar to a photograph, we always leave room for creativity, you are not obliged to redraw what you don’t want to draw in a portrait, you can create and invent new clothes, hair color, eye color, etc. The photo does not always turn out successful in all respects, therefore, we think out, adjust and do what the photographer could not do due to the specifics of his work, namely, create the ideal image.

With love and trepidation, Workshop