How To Draw Soft Hair

How To Draw Soft Hair

by | Sep 12, 2019 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog | 11 comments

I just recently finished up a new portrait drawing course. I wanted to share with you a technique for drawing soft hair.

You want to work in layers. Your first layer in terms of drawing hair is to block in tone. Don’t try to put in your darkest dark all at one time. You’ll want to gradually lay in tone.

With the technique shown in the video, I put down tone, then pushed the tone into the paper with a stiff bristle brush. What this does in push the pencil into the texture of the illustration board.

You will want to do this process a few times. Blocking in tone, using the brush to push it into the board. In the final layers that is where you will refine the details with both an eraser and your pencil.

When working on the final layers you should use a more pliable brush. One that is more forgiving. You can then proceed to pull out the light with a thin eraser. With this drawing, I used a mono-zero cylindrical eraser.

When you use the bristle brush, not a blending stump, you can easily pull out lights with your eraser. Try it it’s a ton of fun.

 

 

Let me know what you thought about this technique. Leave a comment below.

 

Drawing A Small Portrait

Drawing A Small Portrait

by | Mar 24, 2019 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog

Have you ever worked on a figure drawing where the head was really small? Did you ask yourself, how am I supposed to draw so small? The eye is the size of my pencil point.

I’ve been there too, many times. What I have learned over the years of painting smaller portraits on book covers is that shadow shapes are your best friend. 

You really do not want to start outlining little details like the bottom of the nose or say the eye lashes. You first want to block in shapes of shadow. Then you can gradually build up some softer tonal shifts to resolve the features. As you progress you can then start to use some crisper line.

Now I completely understand not every artist works with tone. If this is the case you’ll still want to draw shapes first, not features. If you work with line only you do not have to shade in these shapes.

The key takeaway from this short video, use light and shade to your advantage when drawing small. Also less is best. With a smaller portrait you have to know when to stop. Adding too much detail can take you down a road of heartache.

 

If you are interesting in learning more, you can check out the full course within the members area of Drawing Tutorials Online. Consider signing up to DTO. You will immediately gain access to all of our comprehensive course listing.

 

How To Draw The Structure Of The Eye

How To Draw The Structure Of The Eye

by | Oct 17, 2018 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog

In this screencast portrait drawing lesson I share with you how I think about the structure of the eye. Thinking about the structure of the eye is completely different than using angles, shapes and tone to map out an eye on paper.

The key element to keep in mind when drawing an eye is that you are simply drawing a sphere. You are not drawing an eye, you are drawing a sphere. That sphere has lot’s of distractions, eye lashes and highlights. However if you can wrap your mind around the light that hits that sphere this will help you.

Too many artists cling onto the eye lashes like they are gospel. Worse yet many artists outline the eye with linear looking lashes. It’s super important that you approach drawing the eye from the standpoint of, what type of light source is hitting the sphere of the eye.

Most of the time light is coming from above. This simple fact will help you to see that the lower lid is in shadow and the upper lid is catching light. Stay away from using sharp outlines when drawing the eye. Definitely break your line on the lower eyelid. 

I can go on forever in this post, but I think I’ll let the video tutorial do the talking.

 

 

If you are interested in learning more consider a membership to Drawing Tutorials Online. You will gain access to every lesson in the course, plus be able to download the PDF that compliments this portrait drawing course immediately.

Thanks so much for taking the time to watch.

 

Shea Portrait – Starting With The Eyes

Shea Portrait – Starting With The Eyes

by | Sep 19, 2018 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog | 6 comments

I wanted to share with you lesson one from my latest portrait drawing course titled “Shea Portrait”. A few members had asked the question, can you start a portrait drawing with the eye first? The answer is of course. Diving deeper the real answer is that you can start a portrait wherever you see fit.

Every portrait that you draw presents different obstacles. You certainly do not want to place too many rules on yourself in terms of where to start. Take a look at the portrait subject, what can you wrap your mind around? What looks easy to start with first?

I’m a big believer of utilizing the angels to start drawing the edge of the hair first, moving onto drawing the face next. Drawing the shape of hair versus the shape of the face is a logical way to go about drawing a portrait. However there will be times that branching out from drawing the eyes first is a better solution.

In the portrait drawing lesson below I share with you what to look out for when starting with the eyes. I talk to the importance of making it so both eyes work together, making sure that they are looking in the same direction.

This fifteen lesson course has so much to offer. However I thought I would share with you this very important lesson one.

 

 

If you would like to get started watching get entire course check out Drawing Tutorials Online.

 

Portrait Drawing – Lesson Twelve

Portrait Drawing – Lesson Twelve

by | Sep 4, 2018 | Drawing Tutorials | 3 comments

In this last lesson twelve I share with you how I finish up the portrait drawing. The one key takeaway from this last lesson, good things take time.

Now please don’t take this out of context. Some of my favorite drawings are ten minute gesture drawings. What I’m talking too here is in direct relation to a style associated with drawing in a realistic way utilizing tone.

If you like a drawing style that is somewhat realistic you have to put in the time. An hour just won’t cut it. So know what you like, know what you aspire to. Be realistic with the time it takes to get there. This quite frankly is half the battle to creating a realistic looking portrait.

 

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to watch these lessons. I’m currently working on a new portrait drawing course. I hope to share that with you soon.