• This article gives some tips on how to draw portraits.
  When we see how an artist draws a portrait, we are feeling the sensation of ease of the job and we think that we can do it too, but in practice it turns out differently and we can not draw even one line without a practice, even looking at this video where all the processes of drawing are visible on all the stages of the drawing, many cannot repeat it because they do not know the drawing’s rules.
• We do not even think about the fact that an artist before they draw a line, precisely knows what size line they will have and where to draw this line.
  Drawing and the whole science where it is necessary to learn and understand key rules of conformity of those or other parts of the face and

  distances between them which gives us base knowledge on which we will be guided to draw portraits of people.

1. The face as a rule you always start to draw the contour.
2. After that it is necessary to draw hair, and unnecessary to completely create a hairstyle, usually you will finish the hair at the closing stages of drawing.
   Usually drawing the hair it is not necessary to draw separately each filament and as though the general sites, in dependence about falling light, a changing form of hair…..
3. The next step – drawing the eyes, it is necessary to remember that distance between eyes is equal to the length of one eye. Eyes are very important part of the human face. Pay attention: usually one eye is little bit more than another; do not forget to consider it when drawing.
4. Drawing of eyebrows usually does not cause difficulties.
5. A nose. Drawing a nose is very difficult part of the face for a drawing. Though the rules write that the width of a nose is equal to length of an eye, in practice this is often absolutely different, as a rule it is much wider. And here it is necessary to catch precisely parity of length of an eye and the termination of a nose precisely to define where the nose will come to an end
6. Lips. It can seem that it is very simple to draw lips. Actually it not true and lips as a rule has an absolutely different form and frequently are not entered in the general rules. The rules speak the length of lips is equal to distance between pupils. It is necessary to pay attention also to distance of lips from a nose.
7. Ears like and an eyebrow usually do not represent a complexity for drawing and you have to remember length of ears is equal to distance between eyebrows and a mouth and on video it is distinctly visible.
   Remember, that it is necessary to catch features of the person and to accent on them, for example either small eyes or a mouth. Distinction of different people in forms and the sizes of features give us necessity to recede from base rules of the sizes written in books. This is necessary to draw lines of the face in consider of other lines of the face, that is proportionally to distribute their size rather each other.

Lesson: How to draw portrait in pencil - Sketch portraits

by Lon Haverly from TV seriae “You Can Draw!” www.lonhaverly.com, Virtual Drawing Institute

How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs book on Amazon