How to Draw a Smiling Mouth with Teeth - Tutorial
Jan 31, 2010 Drawing, Tutorials
Everyone knows that the eyes are what can make or break the likeness of a portrait. What you may not realize is that teeth are almost as important! Like the eyes, everyone’s teeth are unique. It’s not enough to slap a few big chiclets into someone’s mouth and call them teeth, you need to study your reference to get just the right shape and size! This tutorial will show you how I approach drawing teeth and give you some general pointers.
Here is our reference photo, set up and gridded in Corel Draw.
First, start with your 2H pencil and draw your grid lines. Then, following your reference, draw the shapes that you see. Draw the contours of the lips and the teeth, but also draw the major shadows and highlights that you can see.
When drawing the teeth, pay close attention to the corners and edges. How flat are they at the bottom? How rounded are the corners? How much gum do we see? Notice how we see all of the front teeth, and as we get to the corners of the mouth we see less and less of each tooth. It might seem stupid, but make sure you get the right number of teeth!
Also, remember that the center of the lips may not necessarily line up with the center of the top teeth, and the center of the top teeth may not line up with the center of the bottoms.
Erase your grid lines then, still with your 2H, shade in the values that you see. Shade in everything but the highlights, layering the graphite to get the shadows. Don’t press hard or you will indent the paper! Blend with your tortillon.
Now grab your 2B and begin shading in the midtones. Here I’ve shaded the lips, the creases beside the mouth and the shadows on the teeth. Careful to avoid your highlights! Notice how the only definition of the lips is a slight difference in value at the edges. In the center of the upper lip, there is almost no definition because of a sort-of diffused highlight. We’ll add that later. Be careful that you don’t shade too heavliy between the teeth. This line is often not as dark or as regular as you think it is. Keep it soft. Blend.
With your 2B, shade in the darkest shadows. These include the corners of the mouth, the shadows under the teeth, and the shadow cast by the upper lip.Remember that the edge of the upper lip isn’t a solid, heavy line. Look at the reference and notice how it is darker in some areas than others. Blend out your shading.
Lastly, you can use your kneaded eraser to pick out the highlights. Because the teeth are wet, the highlights will have a sharper edge. I used my tortillon to draw a very light line around the highlights on the teeth to create that edge. Don’t forget the highlights that you can see on the gums, as well as the faint one on the upper lip.
Be sure to check out my other portrait drawing tutorials!
Tags: draw lips, draw teeth, portraits, Tutorials
How to Set Up a Portrait Composition in Corel Draw - Tutorial
Dec 30, 2009 Art General, Tutorials
It’s always important to determine your composition before starting a drawing, and sometimes it can be useful to do this with the computer. Using photo editing software allows you to combine various images, see what the finished product will look like, and best of all, to make changes easily. I use Corel Draw to create all of my compositions. It’s a very intuitive, easy to use program, but it’s also quite powerful.
Creating compositions this way can provide you with a reference to draw from, and it can also be something that you send to a client before starting a commission. I’ve used Corel Draw to bring figures closer together than they were in the original photograph, to combine the body from one photo with the head from another, and to find the best way to arrange multiple subjects.
This tutorial is meant to teach you how to use Corel Draw to manipulate your photos and create a composition. I’m using a single subject, but you can do this with as many figures as you need to.
Bring your photo reference into Corel Draw. You can do this by clicking file-open, file-import, or you can just click and drag your photo into the program.
Click on the shapes tool, circled in red. This tool allows you to crop your image by changing the outline. After clicking on the shapes tool, click on your photo. You will see the black boxes in each corner change to smaller white boxes outlined in black.
With the mouse, hover over one of these “nodes.” You’ll notice that it gets a little bit bigger. Click and hold as you draw in towards the photo. Here I’ve cropped the upper right corner. We can get an even closer crop by adding nodes. To do this, simply double click anywhere on the outer edge of your photo. A node will appear and you can drag it inwards.
You can get really fussy with this if you want, adding nodes to get a smooth outline, but there’s no real need. Just get the basic outline of your figure.
Now we want to create our frame. Click anywhere on the background or white space and you will see this menu appear. It allows you to change the units of measurement. Depending on what size you want your finished drawing, choose the appropriate units. I like to work in inches.
Notice the rules along the top and left edges of your workspace. Put your mouse on top of one of these rulers, click and drag into your document. You have just created a guide. These guides can be moved and deleted just like any other element of your page, but when you line them up with the ruler, they are great for measuring. Here I’ve used guides to create a 5″ x 7″ frame, the size that I want my drawing to be.
Now you can scale up your image to fill the frame. Click and draw one of the corner boxes to make your image bigger or smaller. This is where you can play around to find the best composition or arrangement. The great thing about this is that you can actually see what your finished drawing will look like.
If part of your image happens to go outside of your guides, just use the shapes tool again to crop off that part.
Now that you have your basic composition, you may want to consider a background. Use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle the dimensions of your frame. Then, on your keyboard, hit ctrl-page down. This layers the rectangle underneath your image.
On the right hand side, click the object properties tab. Here is where you can change the properties of your rectangle. Use the gradient fill to simulate shading and play around to see what looks best.
Once you’ve picked a background, it’s time to save your picture. It’s a good idea to save a Corel file in case you need to make change, but you will also want to export a jpg. To do this, simply click file-export, choose jpeg as your file format and click “export.” At this point, you could also add grid lines if you chose.
Here is the final image. I’ve taken it into a simple photo editing program and decreased the saturation to make it grayscale. This can now be used as your reference, or sent to a client to approve the composition!
Tags: composition, portraits, Tutorials
How to Draw a Portrait - Tutorial Part 2
Nov 1, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
Part two of my portrait tutorial will focus on the hair and body. To see how I drew the face, check out part one of how to draw a portrait. The important thing to remember when drawing either the hair or the body is that you approach it exactly the same way you would anything else. Look for the shapes of light and dark, and create gradual shading between the two.
First of all, here is our reference, which comes from Jocelyn.
Begin blocking in the values in the hair with a 2H pencil. Build up your shadows with layers, not by pressing harder, to get a sense of the volume. Blend it out.
Next, using a B pencil, go back in and shade the shadows and midtones, creating more depth. Blend.
Now take your 2B and shade in only the very darkest areas. These include the top of the head and the areas around the face. Blend.
Now that we have shaded in the base of the hair, it’s time to add the texture. It’s important to create a sense of depth and volume in the hair as a whole before concentrating on drawing individual hairs. To draw the hairs, use a very sharp pencil and a wrist-flicking motion. Use a B pencil for the highlight areas and your 2B for the shadows. Be sure to adda few fly-away hairs.
I’ve kind of breezed through drawing the hair here, but if you want a more detailed lesson check out my tutorial on how to draw hair.
Now we can start working on the rest of the body. It’s important that you treat it the same as the face so that it looks like the same person. You don’t want either to be significantly darker, lighter or more contrasting than the other. Start with your 2H, shade in the values and blend.
Using a B pencil, shade in the darker values and blend it into the lighter. Try to achieve a smooth gradation by building up layers slowly rather than pressing harder with the pencil. Blend.
Now you can darken up the shadows with a 2B. Here I’ve darkened the shadows around the neck and shoulders as well as the straps. Blend.
At this point you’re almost done! All that you need to do now is go back in with your kneaded eraser and pull out some of those highlights. Check with your reference throughout this step and try to refine the shapes of your shadows in case they’ve shifted during blending. Don’t forget your signature!
Don’t be intimidated by drawing portraits. At the end of the day, it’s no different from drawing anything else! All you have to do is pay close attention to your reference and take your time. I also find it helps to start with the most challenging part: the face. Once you have a likeness, the rest will come together!
If you’re having trouble with a particularly tricky portrait, send me a message; I’d be happy to help!
How to Draw a Portrait - Tutorial Part 1
Oct 25, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
As a follow-up on my post about tips for drawing realistic portraits, here is a tutorial that will take you through all the steps. Portrait drawing can be very overwhelming at first: figuring out where to start, what to do next, and how to integrate all the little details… You will need to develop a process that you’re comfortable with, one that works for you. This is an example of how I approach portrait drawing, meant to help you find your own way. I find it’s best to start with the most challenging part, the face, and then work on the other details. This tutorial will give you strategies for learning how to draw realistically.
My reference today comes from my good friend Jocelyn. Aside from being gorgeous herself, she also takes some gorgeous photos. Check out her Flickr if you have a chance.
Start with your grid. You’ll notice that I’ve done a finer grid just for the face. This is to give myself a few more points of reference when drawing the facial features. Every millimeter counts when you’re drawing the eyes, nose and mouth, and the finer the grid the easier it will be to get the right placement.
When you do your line drawing, remember to outline everything you can see: the facial features, the contours of the head and body, the highlights, the shadows and any other subtle variation in tone you can see. Having these lines to guide your shading will be a huge help! Use a hard pencil, like a 2H pencil, for this part and press very lightly; you don’t want these lines to show through your drawing! When you’re done, erase the gridlines. As you can see, I don’t worry too much about erasing every little bit. As long as the lines are light, they will be obscured by your shading.
Now we start shading! At this point, I usually focus on the face and ignore everything else. Resist the urge to start with the eyes. Your shading can sometimes point out problems with the placement of the eyes, so first work on shading the rest of the face. Use a 2H again to shade the base skin tone. Shade everything but the brightest highlights. Don’t press any harder for the shadows, just spend more time going over that area to build up more layers of graphite.
Use your blending stick to smooth out your pencil strokes. If this is looking too dark to you, remember that the only areas we want to be as white as the paper are the highlights, which in this image are small areas on the cheeks, chin, nose and forehead. You can also see that I’ve blended some graphite into the area under the bangs. When I do the hair, we will be able to see skin showing through, not white paper.
Using your B now, go in and add another layer of darker shadows. Here I have shaded around the nose, the eyes, the mouth, the left forehead and the shadows down the right side of the face. You can also block in the shapes of the eyes at this point, but lightly in case you need to make any changes. When you blend, you want a smooth transition between the shadow and the midtone, but be careful that your shadows don’t grow in the blending.
At this point, you can start adding some detail to the eyes. First, double check that they are in the right position. You can do this by comparing your drawing with your reference. You can also do this by looking at your drawing in a mirror, or scanning your drawing into the computer and overlaying it with a transparent copy of your reference. Still using your B, add more dimention to the eyes by drawing the corners, the iris and the pupil. Also draw in the fold of the eyelid. Don’t forget to include a highlight and the tear ducts! Carefully blend your marks and blend into the whites, creating a shadow under the lash line.
Next, use a 2B to define the darkest shadows. They include the ones around the nose, eyes and mouth. I’ve also added some extra shading on the right by the eye and cheekbone, as well as under the chin. Be careful blending: this pencil is quite soft and it will be easy to blend. You don’t want your shadows to expand.
For the finishing touches, use your kneaded eraser to pull out some lighter areas and clean up your highlights. You may also need to go back in with your pencil to touch up certain areas. Pay close attention to your reference at this point because it’s often these little touches that make all the difference. I’ve adjusted the highlight on the end of the nose as well as added highlights around the lips.
So we’re done the face now. In part two we will continue with the hair and the body. To get notified when the second part is ready, you can sign up for an email subscription. This lets you keep up with Learn to… Art! by receiving updates in your email inbox!
How to Draw Hair - Tutorial
Oct 11, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
As I pointed out in my post about tips for drawing hair, drawing hair realistically can be very tricky. Don’t give in to the temptation to draw every single hair. The best way to approach drawing hair is to look at it as a solid object. You need to look for the shapes the hair makes and the patterns of light and dark. When drawing hair, it’s necessary to simplify quite a bit. Here is a tutorial to show you the steps I take when drawing realistic hair.
Here is my reference image, from the Wetcanvas image library. It has been gridded using Corel Draw, but you can also grid it by hand. I find it’s easier to see the different values if you put your reference into greyscale before drawing it; that way you aren’t distracted by colours.
Now, using a 2H pencil or harder, use the grid to draw the shapes that you see. Try to ignore the individual hairs, instead look for the dominant light and dark shapes. Here I’ve drawn the highlighted shapes of the hair as well as the darkest shapes. Try squinting if you’re having trouble making out the lights and darks.
At this point, before you start shading, you can use a very hard pencil (6H) to draw in some of the individual hairs. Press firmly so that you indent the paper, and when you shade the lightness of the pencil will be preserved, leaving what looks like an individually highlighted hair. Then, use a 2B to shade all of your midtones. That’s everything that isn’t a highlight or a shadow. Make sure your pencil strokes to in the direction that the hair is growing in, but shade as if it were a solid object.
Now use your 2B pencil to shade in the shadows. Pay close attention to the subtle dimensions of the hair. Here I have shaded in the shadow areas that I identified in my line drawing stage, but I’ve also added some darker midtones in the rest of the drawing.
Next, use a blending stick or tortillon to blend your pencil together. Make sure you blend into the highlights; you don’t want a solid line where the highlight meets the midtones. Also blend out your shadows in the same way. Again, blend in the direction of the hair growth.
Now you can start thinking of the individual hairs. This shading serves as the base of your hair drawing. It describes the form of the hair and tells us that it’s an object of volume. Using a very sharp 2B pencil, start laying in some of your hairs. When you do this, draw in the direction of the hair growth. Use quick pencil strokes by flicking your wrist. Remember that every hair isn’t going to be parallel; some should go in a slightly different direction. Draw the hairs into the highlights, preserving some white just in the middle.
Now use your 2B pencil to do the same in the shadow areas. Make sure these strokes blend out into the rest of the drawing. Sharpen your pencil as often as you need to; you want a nice point!
At this point, you can repeat the steps as often as necessary. The key to hair is to build up depth and dimension. Blend out your pencil strokes, then go in with more. Once you feel like you’ve achieved the look you want, it’s time to clean up the highlights. Grab your kneaded eraser and form a thin edge. Use this edge pick up thin lines within your highlights. It works best if you use your eraser the same way you did your pencil: short strokes going in the direction of the hair growth. Remember to add a few thin highlights in the midtone area of the hair where the light might be hitting a single strand.
And now you know how to draw realistic hair! Don’t forget to check out some of my other tutorials!
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