Tips for drawing portraits in pencil   by Anna Bregman

in Art / Painting    (submitted 2010-12-22)

Here are some of the most important things I have learnt and always try to keep in mind when I'm drawing a portrait

DON'T THINK THAT DRAWING IS 'MAGIC' - KEEP MEASURING!
It's a myth that artistic ability is a gift that can't be learnt. What artists do when they draw isn't magic. In fact when they draw they are constantly measuring and appraising distances between the features they are drawing. Artists are simply people who seem to understand this need instinctively, but anyone can learn to do it.

As you look at the face you are drawing, try imagining a cross dividing up their face. The vertical line would run right down the centre of their face from in between the eyebrows down to the centre of their chin. The horizontal line would run just below their nose. Then, as you start to draw the different parts of the face, keep looking at how far from those central lines you think that feature is. You should be constantly measuring by eye or by holding up your pencil - is the forehead longer than the nose? Is the gap between the eyes longer or shorter than each eye? And so on…..

TRY DRAWING A GRID IF YOU ARE WORKING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH
If you are copying from a photograph you can draw this grid up literally by dividing your photograph into squares, drawing the lines on in pen or pencil. Use 4 or 8 squares. Then draw very faint lines on the paper you are drawing onto - the same number that you've divided your reference into. This will really help you to 'break the image up' into smaller areas whose interconnecting shapes you can copy much more easily and accurately.

DON'T OVERDO THE SHADING
Hatch lines rather than rubbing in the pencil with your finger. Apart from the risk of introducing oils from your skin into the paper, it will create a dull portrait with a dated, 'airbrushed' look. Remember also that if the tones of the skin are overall more white than dark, shading all over the face will result in a dull and over-dark image. I try to keep at least a third of the face as untouched plain paper. Even when drawing darker skin, it's better to keep your shading lighter than the actual skin tone. Darker skin obviously is darker than white skin but is just as luminous and you don't want to loose this quality in your portrait.

READ A VERY USEFUL BOOK.......

For many people who try to draw a portrait, it is a frustrating experience. They may feel that the pencil simply won't record what they want it to! The tendency is to blame this on a lack of natural hand-to-eye coordination. However I believe that although those with a natural artistic ability may have a well developed ability to 'measure' with the eye, the primary obstacle to drawing from observation is an inability to really LOOK. And this is certainly something that can be easily learnt with practice.

So, the first thing I would recommend to anyone who wants to improve their drawing is to read Betty Edwards' classic 1979 book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'. What this book teaches you is a new way of seeing, and how to identify the barriers which may be blocking you from observing accurately. In Edwards' analysis, these barriers stem from the over use of the left side of the brain - associated with the verbal, analytic mode that likes to categorize, label and order. In opposition, she locates the right side as visual and perceptual - that 'sees' more accurately as it does not attempt to judge and order as it does so. The 'Right brain' she argues, is non-verbal and intuitive, using pictures rather than words to comprehend visual stimulus.

To give an example in plain English: the book prints a line drawing portrait of Igor Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso - both the right way up, and upside down. Readers are asked to copy both images, and most people will find that the copy they made of the upside down drawing is the most accurate of the two. Why? Because the left side of our brains cannot 'jump in' and start telling us what it thinks an eye, a hand, an ear, and so on, should look like. Upside down, the brain was unable to identify anything other than a series of abstract lines forming unrecognizable shapes. And the only way to copy these shapes was by really LOOKING - analyzing lengths and measuring distances.

Since the book was first published (it has never been out of print!) new neurological study has somewhat undermined this 'left side' 'right side' brain function theory. Whilst linear reasoning, language and vocabulary are still thought to be lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain, most functions of thought are now understood to be distributed more evenly across both sides.
Whatever your take on the neurology behind the book's main thesis, the theory itself which teaches you to look without passing judgement and to suspend certain thought processes holds true and will teach you how to really look accurately when you are drawing. The less you focus on drawing the separate features on the face and the more you think of the whole face as simply a collection of abstract shapes formed by different tones, the more accurate your drawing will be. In addition, working in this more methodical way will reduce the anxiety you may experience about how well you have drawn the eyes, nose, mouth and so on.

Let's take another example of the value in approaching a portrait by trying to 'forget' what you are drawing. Take the mouth, for example. Most people have a clear idea in their head of what a mouth looks like. And anyone who has never actually drawn a mouth, would probably say that the top and bottom of the lips are clearly defined by a line. Now take a look in the mirror at your own lips, especially your bottom lip. You will see that the thin lip tissue certainly does not end in a straight line. It blends gradually with the thicker skin below it, usually resulting in an area of pinkish, intermediate skin between the two. Under which there is probably a line of shadow. Therefore, if you had allowed any prejudgement to influence your drawing of this lip, you would probably have finished it with a clearly defined but quite inaccurate line. Whereas if you had simply worked your way down from the dark crease between the lips and carried on down, observing the light hitting the plump lip, the graded areas beneath and the shadow below that, you would probably have produced a much more accurate representation. In fact, it's quite hard when really looking at a lip to say exactly where the lip 'ends' and the regular skin begins again. But to allow yourself to properly observe this you have to totally suspend any received ideas and simply LOOK. Try imagining before you start that you've never seen a face before and don't even know what the different parts of it are called! This will stop you making any assumptions about what you see.

About the Author

ANNA BREGMAN is a portrait artist based in London. She studied the History of Art at University College London and now works as a portrait artist for private customers and as a draughtperson in the UK film industry.
She specializes in <sb>child portraits. Visit her website to commission a portrait in oils or pencil.</sb>