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Blonde, Brunette and Black – Drawing Hair Colours

Aug 15, 2010 Drawing

I recently got an e-mail from a reader asking me how to draw dark hair. Drawing different coloured hair has more to do with the pencils you use than using different techniques. Here are the guidelines I use when drawing blonde, brunette, and black hair.

To learn more about the specific techniques for drawing realistic hair, read my hair drawing tips and check out my step-by-step tutorial.

Blonde Hair

Here I have used only two pencils: a 2H and a B. I started with the 2H as the bottom layer, pulling each stroke towards the highlight in the centre. It’s important to let a few pencil strokes go all the way through the highlight. Then I used the B to darken the shadows, also pulling a few strokes all the way across the highlight.

With blonde hair, the shadows aren’t as dark and the highlight area is usually larger and brighter.

Brown or Brunette Hair

Brunette hair requires more layers than blonde hair to create the darker values. I used exactly the same method and technique as I did for blonde hair, but I also used a 2B pencil to create the darker shadows.

You’ll notice that the highlighted area is smaller and looks more like individual hairs are reflecting light. For brunette hair, you will want to draw more pencil strokes through the highlight.

Black Hair

Again, I started with a 2H pencil, then a B pencil, then a 2B pencil. For black hair, I use an even darker pencil to create the rich, dark shadows. Here I’ve used a 4B and a 6B pencil. It’s all about creating layers to simulate the texture of the hair.

I’ve also made sure to continue the dark pencil lines throughout the highlight. At the very end, I used a kneaded eraser to pick up a few bright highlights.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s not really a matter of using different techniques. Drawing darker hair requires more layers and softer pencils. Light hair has a big, broad highlight and dark hair has highlights on just a few hairs.

As always, use a good reference image and pay close attention to the value. When working with pencil, it’s the value that will communicate the hair colour!

Tags: drawing tips, hair, portraits, texture

In the Background – What to Put Behind Portrait Drawings

May 26, 2010 Drawing

Once you get a handle on how to draw portraits, it’s time to start thinking about the backgrounds of your drawings.

When you’re just starting to learn how to draw, backgrounds can be overwhelming and just plain annoying. As you start to develop your techniques, you begin to see the importance of considering what is behind your portrait.

Using seven examples of my own portraits, here are some options for portrait backgrounds.

1. White

This is the most obvious and the most easiest, but it isn’t always the most effective. The problem with a white background is that the white of the paper remains on the same “plane” as the white highlights on your figure. This means that the background and the foreground merge, and your subject doesn’t pop forward.

2. Shaded

With this portrait, I opted to shade the entire background in a mid-tone gray. By doing this, I pushed the background back, letting the subject come forward. The dog’s face pops on the darker background and it looks more three-dimensional.

3. Gradient

This is another way to dress-up the shaded background. You can manipulate the background in a way that suggests a light source, that emphasizes your subject, and creates direction and focus. Here, the highlight is behind the subject’s head, drawing the focus there.

4. Simple

In this portrait, I’ve taken the natural background and simplified it. Behind the subject was the beach, ocean and horizon. I’ve simplified it so that it’s easier and quicker to draw, but is still recognizable to the client who knows what it is. It adds a little extra interest to the portrait without taking away from the subject.

5. Blurry

This type of background is similar to the previous one, but it creates more of an atmospheric setting. Here the background refers to nature, trees, and foliage. To create this effect, shade the whole background and then pick up random highlights with a kneaded eraser. Then go back in with your pencil and darken some areas. The key is to make the patterns of light and dark unpredictable.

6. Realistic

Using a realistic background is a good way to communicate something about your subject or their personality. In this portrait, my client asked me to draw a wheat field in the background to relate to her dad’s life as a farmer. When drawing a realistic background, remember that you will have to simplify the details to a certain extent. Here, the wheat gets less distinct as it gets farther away, creating a sense of distance and depth.

7. Montage

This type of background is gives you some freedom to play with the elements of your portrait and create meaning in a more creative way. In this portrait, I’ve used the image of a medal that the subject won at a marathon. Although the medal is much bigger compared to the figure than it would be in real life, it becomes a part of the overall composition and adds context to the portrait.

Each of these techniques serves a purpose and will suit some portraits better than others. Whatever you do, don’t forget to consider your background. Your drawing is your whole page and you need to think about how best to use it!

Don’t be afraid of backgrounds, jump in and experiment!

Tags: backgrounds, better drawings, composition, drawing tips, portraits

The Best Way to Approach Portrait Drawings

Apr 1, 2010 Drawing

You’re sitting at your table with a clean, fresh piece of drawing paper in front of you. You draw your grid (or not) and then you outline the features of your portrait.

Now what?

All that white staring back at you can be intimidating!

 There are probably as many ways to start a portrait drawing as there are people who draw them. I’ve narrowed them down to two basic approaches: the all-over approach and the wallpaper approach.

The question is, which approach is best?

The Wallpaper Approach

When papering a wall, you start on one side and work your way methodically across. When you draw this way, it’s much the same; you start on one side of the page and complete the drawing in sections as you move across. Brian Duey demonstrates this in his portrait drawing tutorial.

While this approach almost ensures that you won’t drag your hand through your work, it can be difficult to create smooth transitions between the areas you’re working on. You also have to be spot-on with your values as you work.

The All-Over Approach

This approach takes the entire page into consideration. Each layer of graphite is built up gradually across the whole portrait. My portrait tutorial is a good example of this.

Drawing this way lets you respond to the portrait as a whole piece, rather than just rendering each area as you see it, but you need to be careful where you rest your hand. 

My Verdict

You can probably guess where I stand on this, since I used my own tutorial as an example! I am a fan of the all-over approach, and let me tell you why:

 By working on one area in isolation, you can lose sight of the drawing as a whole. This approach lets you evaluate shapes and tones and values in relation to each other. It’s not the darkness of a shadow that creates depth, but the comparison of the dark areas to the lighter ones.

It also gives you the chance to exercise your artistic license. It’s up to you to determine how faithful you will be to your reference photo, and it’s easier to make these decisions as you draw. When you use the wallpaper approach, you can end up blindly re-creating the photo without consideration for the final art piece.

Another advantage of this approach is that you are able to correct mistakes easily. If during the first stages of shading, you realize that your eyes don’t line up properly, it’s easy to erase it. With the wallpaper approach, your line drawing needs to be exact, because once everything is fully rendered, it will be very difficult to go back!

Conclusion

All in all, I find that the all-over approach helps to keep the bigger picture in mind. It’s a more fluid and responsive process, more flexible and easier to change.

That being said, you need to discover which approach is best for you. Brian Duey is obviously a very accomplished portrait artist and the wallpaper approach appears to be working for him!

Tags: art tips, better drawings, drawing tips, portraits

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