This may not be my most exciting lesson, however it is an important one. Sometimes drawing a realistic portrait takes time. In this short three minute YouTube world that we live in it’s easy to loose sight of the fact that quality takes time.

Now every artist obviously is different. Every artist has their own personal style. For my portrait drawings I really do enjoy spending long hours working on blocking in the tone.

In this particular video tutorial I’m sharing with you how I start blocking in the soft tone of the hair on the shadow side of the head. When drawing hair it’s important to build up your middle tones first before diving into pressing down super hard on your pencil.

The key takeaways from this portrait drawing lesson, hair is soft, draw it in a soft way. If hair is long, use long pencil strokes. Hair is made up of many cylindrical shapes, think of how the light is hitting those cylinders.

It’s so very important to be clear on your personal style of portrait drawing. You might decide that you really don’t want to draw every strand of hair. You might want to leave some areas of the hair void of detail. Remember, make it fun and keep it original.

If you got something from this very quiet video please leave a comment below.

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