Learn How To Draw Online

Let’s look at the straight on portrait now. Things are a bit more complicated than with a profile, because now you’re dealing with the whole face, not just half of it. As with profiles, your mind is going to try and fool you into thinking some aspects of the face look a certain way when they really don’t. Here’s the first problem: The human face is not symmetrical, meaning that the left side of your face is NOT a mirror image of the right side of your face. Each eye is different, each lobe of your nose is different, and the left corner of your mouth may curl more than the right corner. Facial asymmetry is a natural thing, and is far more common than facial symmetry, but you don’t really see it unless you’re looking for it. Facial symmetry does exist, but it is very rare, and when we see it, we call it “beautiful”. People called Supermodels often have symmetrical faces – that’s why they’re Supermodels, and also, an unrealistic standard of beauty. But if you look at the “supermodels” really closely, I bet you’ll find some that aren’t so symmetrical. Asymmetry is not a bad thing, in fact, it’s what makes us look like us. Which is why if you try and make both sides of the face look exactly alike when they’re not, your drawing isn’t going to look like your subject. Look for symmetry, if it’s there, draw it, otherwise draw what you see. Draw the left eye, and when you come to the right eye, don’t just draw the mirror image of the left, because, chances are that the right looks different than the left. Try and forget that you’ve drawn the first eye and just draw the second eye the way you see it.

If you measure the full distance of the profile you have drawn, from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the chin, and take that measurement and put it horizontally starting at the bridge of the nose, the other end of the measurement should give you a rough idea of where the back of the head will fall. Measure that on your subject to verify it. Then measure it out on your drawing and make a mark where you measured. Because of your subject’s hair, you’ll have to guess at the shape of the skull. Lightly draw a curve representing the top of the skull that connects the forehead line to the back of the head mark you made.

If you measure the space between the back of the head and the ear measuring at at the bottom of the ear, you can find another point and continue the contour of the back of the head. This point at the back of the head, by the way, is about at the point where the neck meets the skull.

Now you should have the head almost done, only the neck isn’t drawn. Continue the back of the head contour line along and draw the back of the neck of your subject. Where you left off with the jaw line, continue that line down and finish the front of the neck.

Some measurements you should look for in profiles.

Before you draw in the hair, you should tighten up any measuring you need to do. For example, measure the width of the eye you drew and gauge it against the height of the ear you drew. Compare these measurements with your subject. If the measurements are off a little, try and correct them by re-sizing and re-drawing the ear or eye. Measure from the lower lip to the bottom of the chin and gauge it against the lower lip to the bottom of the nose. Does a vertical line connect the tip of the brow with the tip of the chin? What about the top of the forehead and the point where the jaw turns to neck? Is this exactly vertical? Doing measurements like this will tighten up your proportions and negative spaces. Getting likeness in a drawing is all about getting the right proportions and negative spaces.

Some measurements you should look for in profiles.

You’ve got a bald profile head. Now, if your subject is bald, you’re just about done, but if not, you have to draw the hair. You have to find the hairline. Do this by measuring horizontally starting at the bridge of the nose and going across until you get to the hairline. Make a dot marking that point. Now slide up the forehead a bit and take another measurement at the line of the forehead to the hairline and make another dot. Then, right on your forehead contour line, mark off right were the hairline meets the forehead. Using these three points you can connect the dots and draw a contour of the hairline. If your subject has long hair that goes over and below the ear just add more dots you can connect, doing the same horizontal measurement starting at some point on the profile contour. Now just guess as far as placement, and draw the outside contour of the hair all around the skull.

Finally, erase any construction lines (like the lopsided egg), add any missing details like the few lines to make up the inside of the ear and the line indicating the mouth in between the lips. Draw the nose lobe and the nostril. Does the nostril look a little like a sideways teardrop? Draw it that way, then. That’s about it for a simple profile.

On a profile head, the eyes will fall about halfway down the face, this is the same place the eyes would fall if you were looking at the face straight on. The thing that the Egyptians seemed to struggle with – proportion and perspective, changes when you turn your head. The Egyptians drew the same eye for profile and for straight on, this isn’t right. Just as if you held a coin between your index finger and thumb and looked at the face, then turned it to look at the side, you don’t see the same thing. This applies with the eye. It’s fairly easy to draw an eye in profile. You’ll only be drawing one eye, if you see both eyes it’s not a true profile. An eye in profile doesn’t seem to be as expressive as an eye seen from the front. This is mostly because you really don’t see much of the eye from the side, it’s mostly the skin around the eye that you see. The eye in profile can minimally be drawn with three lines: the eyeball, the upper lid, and the lower lid. It’s pretty much a triangle with one curved side. Take a look at these eyes:

Do you see the three basic lines? You can bypass your logical mind telling you how draw an eye if you break down the eye you’re drawing into at least the three lines. But don’t draw one of THESE eyes, draw the one that you see.

Numbers 1-3 are well drawn and most realistic. The eyeball line isn’t usually flat, the upper lid sticks out further than the lower lid. Do you see that? Number four shows the bottom lid further out than the top; it doesn’t look right, does it?

Number five illustrates a point with the lashes. Don’t draw individual lashes, rather, draw them “clumped”. Since you’re seeing the lashes from the side, it’s almost like you’re seeing one big lash, so draw one big lash. Like in these drawings, the lash will be thicker away from the eye than closer. Look at the eye you’re drawing, men have eyelashes, too. Just because you’re drawing a dude doesn’t mean he hasn’t got eyelashes. Just don’t draw them too long, he’s likely to inflict pain if he thinks you drew his lashes too long.

One last point: Crows feet. The little wrinkles at the outside corner of the eye. They might be there even if she claims she hasn’t got any. Even babies have crows feet, look for yourself. You may want to draw them in lightly, though.

Have someone sit so you can draw their eye.

Your Assignment: Draw some eyes in profile. Just the eye, not the rest of the face. You could do what I did here and draw the contour of the nose just to make the eye look more “eye-like”. Look for pictures of people in profile, or better yet, get someone to sit for you. Draw their one eye, and then have them spin around so you can draw the other one. Draw several eyes on one piece of paper, and just do lines like I did, don’t bother with shadows yet. You may want to start with the top lid then draw the curved line for the eyeball, then draw the bottom lid. When these three lines are drawn, thicken up the ends of the lid lines to make eyelashes. Then if you see them, draw in the “crows feet” wrinkles at the corner of the eye. Try and draw several different eyes belonging to several different people.

After you’ve drawn your profile lips, keep going with the contour line you’re doing and draw in the curve of the chin and continue the line to draw the jaw line. Most likely, an imaginary line from the base of the nose to the bottom of the chin will be angled. not a straight vertical. Do you see that in your profile so far?

Now. from here, let’s go up to the forehead. Measure again from the eye line you drew to the completed chin curve. Remember that the distance from the eye to the chin is the same as the distance from the eye to the top of the head. You better verify that by making that measurement on your subject. So, measure on your drawing, from the eye line to the bottom of the chin and carry that measurement to the eye line and make a small mark where the top of the head will be.

Start at the nose and draw a contour of the forehead that ends at the dot you made. When drawing the line remember to follow the contour of your subject’s forehead. Draw the slight bulge right above the nose that is the brow.

A simple eye – 3 lines.

Now draw the eye and the eyebrow. Measure to see how far back from the bridge of the nose the eye is set, and make a tiny mark where the eyeball will be. The eye can be broken down into three simple lines: The upper lid, the eyeball, and the lower lid. Can you see the three lines on your subject? Draw this simple shape the way you see it on your subject and add in the pupil. The eyebrow will be a dark shape above the eye. I suggest drawing the contour of the eyebrow, then filling it in. We’re going to go into more detail about the eye in a few minutes…

Now for the ear. Take your pencil and measure again from the eye to the bottom of the chin. Turn that measurement 90 degrees counter clockwise, hold that measurement on the horizontal eye line, and at the back of the eye you just drew, the top middle of the ear will probably land at the other end of the measurement. Measure this on your subject to verify it. The bottom of the ear will fall somewhere between the nose and mouth, if you drew another horizontal line from the bottom of the ear over to the face you have so far. Draw the “C” contour that is the ear.

Drawing people does require the ability to draw, but it also requires lots of measuring which is a very right-brained, logical thing to do. Even if you’re not going for total realism in your drawing, knowing some basic facial measurements will help you to make your drawing look more like a face. Everybody knows the placement of the various facial elements – the eyes are above the nose, which is above the mouth, but how far above?

We’re looking at the profile of the face because it’s a bit easier to draw than the face when it’s straight-on. Usually, when you look at a profile, the eyes, nose and mouth are the first things your vision gravitate to even though, comparatively, those elements are a small percentage of the total head. The cheek, ear, and back of the head are much more prominent than the face, so when we draw a profile, we have to keep that in mind.

The “lopsided egg”

Let’s draw this old mugshot on this page. Get your lap desk out and put a sheet or two of paper on it and get comfortable in front of your computer. Sharpen your 5B pencil and have your eraser handy. If you’d like to print out the photo we’ll be working with, go ahead. To start a profile drawing you might want to lightly draw a “lopsided egg” shape to get the placement and general size down on your paper.

The eye is halfway between the bottom of the chin and the top of the skull. So the eye will be an excellent place to base our measurements from. So you might want to lightly draw a straight, horizontal line through you egg at it’s midpoint. Use your pencil to measure from the top of the “egg” to the chin to find and place the line.

Rather than drawing the eye first, you might want to start with the nose. Measure the length of your subject’s nose from the bridge to it’s tip and lightly draw an angled line that has all the bumps and curves of your subjects nose. It won’t be a straight line, because your subject’s nose isn’t straight. Hold your pencil’s eraser vertically at the tip of your subject’s nose so the tip of your pencil is pointing up, see the angle that is created between your pencil and the nose? Look at the angle that the nose creates in comparison to the straight vertical edge of your paper and try and approximate the nose angle you measured. You’re going to have to eyeball the length of the nose because you don’t have anything in your drawing to measure it against.

The nose and the “bumps” of the lips.

Now with the nose lightly drawn in, move down and draw the contour of the lips. They’ll be two curved “bumps”, the top one may protrude out a bit more, and also be a bit smaller than the bottom lip. But of course, the sizes of any element on the face depends on the face you’re drawing.

To start to draw you’re going to need a few materials. The nice thing about drawing is that it’s a pretty inexpensive hobby. Drawing is simple enough that you could use any writing implement and any drawing surface, but if you’re going to take the time to learn, you might as well get some decent tools.

Lap desk.

Since this site is on the Internet, you’ll probably be sitting in front of your computer as you draw, so you’re going to have to be comfortable there. If you’re at a large desk where you can just clear a spot next to your keyboard, that would be fine. If you’re at a smaller desk, or just don’t have room to draw on your computer desk, might I suggest a “lap desk”. At many art supply stores, and even at some Wal-Marts, you can buy what looks like a large clipboard. It’s just a large piece of wood with clips bolted on so you can clip your paper to the board. Of course, you could just get your own board and tape your paper to it as well. What you will do is set the board in your lap as you sit at your computer desk and lean the top of the board on your desk so you have an angled surface to work on. You may want to angle yourself so you can get to your computer’s mouse and work the popping images and navigation of this site.

For paper you can just use typing paper of at least 8.5×11 inches or just grab a stack of printer paper.

Get one of those pink school erasers. Hopefully you’ll never use it. You may also want to get a bunch of those cone shaped erasers that fit on the end of a pencil.

You can use regular number 2 pencils, but I think the lead is too hard. A hard lead will give you a real thin, gray line, and a softer lead gives you fatter, blacker lines. If you’re at the art store looking for lap desks, grab a bunch of 5B or 4B pencils. A 5B is a bit softer than a 4B and so will make a darker line. I prefer 5B over 4B. To see a comparison between a No. 2 and a 5B click HERE.

That’s it! Now let’s continue with the learning!

There are three common ways that the portrait is drawn: Profile, Straight On, and Three Quarters. We’ll look at each view in turn. First, let’s look at the human head in profile. The profile is when the subject is looking left or right so that only one side of the face is visible. Many people feel that the profile is the easiest of the three views to draw because the facial features are very minimized in relation to the rest of the head. You’re only dealing with one eye instead of two, there’s also only one ear, and half a nose and mouth. I won’t dispute that profiles are easier, but the same problems of proportion happen in all three views, so let’s look at these problems first using profiles.

Egyptian profile.

“fixed” Egyptian profile.

Here’s an ancient example of a profile. The Egyptians were a highly developed culture, but their depictions of humans were very highly stylized and not really true to life. Look at the photo to the right. Can you see any factors in this painting that would make it look “less realistic”?

The two biggest errors are the eye and the ear. The eye looks more like an eye that is seen from the front, not the side. And the ear itself looks fine, but it’s too high up on the head. These errors aren’t confined to this one image, every ear they drew seemed to be too high up on the head, and they never seemed to see the eye in true profile. The Egyptians placed the ear so that the bottom of the earlobe fell about to the middle of the nose and the top of the ear ends up above the eyebrow. They seemed to have the general size of ear correct, it’s size is usually from the eye to the bottom of the nose, but they always set the ear too high. The top of the ear should line up with the eye and the bottom should line up between the nose and mouth. Look at the next illustration to see what a profile with these two errors fixed might look like.

Measuring features on the face to get them in proper proportion is really important because each person’s face is unique, and has unique proportions. Because of this, you must measure one feature against another feature on the same face in order to get the proper proportions for that face. For example, if you measure on your subject that his ear is the same length as his nose, in your drawing of this person, his ear better be the same length as his nose.

An incorrect profile.

Even though each face is unique unto itself, there are still some general guidelines to help you with proper proportion. Many of the same measurements and proportions happen on every face, and if you know these “global measurements and guidelines” you will have a good starting point for your drawing. Many of the errors that happen when drawing people happen because the artist isn’t aware of these “global measurements and guidelines”, and is allowing his own mind to fool him with what he thinks he sees. Look at the profile drawing to the right. It shows how a beginning artist might draw a profile. It also shows some of the common errors in drawing the face that artists make. It’s obvious that this profile is “incorrect”, but why is it incorrect? Click on it and I’ll show you why.