Head study – short demo

Hi everyone,

I had done this portrait drawing yesterday, from Loomis´ book and thought I would post this here, along with a few along-the-way photos. Hope this is useful for anyone learning to do the same.

I have established the tone here by holding the pencil differently, as taught by Mr. Glenn Vilppu; its terribly useful, you have more freedom of movement and the strokes look much more freer and its easier to cover large areas quickly. It takes a while to get used to and I have resisted learning this way of holding the pencil for a long time (!!) because at first you don´t get the same kind of accuracy/control that you get while doing it your normal way (which is holding it in the same position that you do as while writing!)  But I love it now. So, this is the way you do it: first make a long tapering point on the pencil with a pen-knife; you can´t do it as easily with the short point that comes when you sharpen with a pencil sharpener. Then hold the pencil so that it aligns almost horizontally with the plane of the paper so that you can drag the length of the point along the surface of the paper to create tone. Holding it at slightly different angles gives different widths for your tone.

Holding the pencil:

Here, in this first step, I am basically concerned with the tilt of the head and the proportions. Her head is tilted slightly towards the (our) left. Draw a vertical line for the length of the head  (top of head to bottom of chin) tilted slightly towards the left. The eye line lies horizontally on the mid point of this line, naturally also tilted so that it is at right angles to the vertical line. Draw the eye brow line a little higher.

The bottom of the nose lies on the mid line between the eye brow line and the bottom of the chin.

The bottom of the lower lip  lies on the mid line between the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin.

The distance from the bottom of the nose to the pit of the neck is the same length as the length from the top of the head to the bottom of the nose.

Hair line to Brow line = Brow line to Bottom of nose =  Bottom of nose to Bottom of Chin

These are pretty standard proportions which vary only slightly between individuals. Draw an oval for the face and bring out the cheekbones and the jaw line. Sketch in the features and mark the hair line:

I have started establishing a light tone here, following the form of the face:

Some darks for the eyes and the right cheekbone:

I noticed the hair line is a little too high, so I have brought it down. Darks on the sides of the forehead, lips, nose and cheekbones, starting on the chin to give it roundness:

Light tone on the neck. Leave highlights in the hair and start with a light tone over the rest of the hair area with broad strokes made by dragging the belly of the pencil:

Throw in a cast shadow on the neck. Pump up the darks but at the same time, leave a little bit of reflected light to make it appear luminous and not too dark. You can notice this bit of reflected light on the right jaw area: