Drawing Portraits Basic Layout

Here is a basic lesson on how the face and head is proportioned. This is a general layout and may vary slightly depending on the subject you are drawing. This tutorial is to show the general layout of the face as if you were looking at the subject directly in the face.

Getting Started.

1. Start by drawing an egg shape. This will give you a general shape of the head as your guide. We can reshape it a little later in the process.

2. Draw a vertical line in the center of the oval. Starting just above the top of your oval and stopping just below it.

There are three points of focus for outlining the face.

 They are the brow, the cheekbone, and the jawbone

 

1. The Brow will determine where the eyes are placed. This is located half way between the top of the head   and the bottom of the chin.

2. The cheekbone will determine where the nose sits on the face. This line will go half way between the brow and the bottom of the chin

3. The jaw will determine where the mouth is. This will be half way between the cheekbone and the bottom of the chin.

You should end up with something similar to the image below.

 

Next set the position of the eyes, nose, and mouth.

The Eyes

The eyes will sit on your center horizontal line. The head is 5 eyes wide. Take the width of your oval and divide it by five. Start in the middle the width between the eyes will be the same as the width of the eye itself.

The Nose

The nose will sit on your second horizontal line that represents the cheekbone. The nose will be as wide as the space between the eyes. Draw your lines for the nose directly below the inside of the eyes as shown below.

The Mouth

The mouth will be positioned on the bottom horizontal line representing the jawbone. The mouths width is determent by coming straight down from the center of the eyes, as shown below.

If you take a face and overlay it onto the outline we just made you can see it is slightly off because the photo is at a slight angle, but this will give you a general outline of the face. 

Next week we will go over some basic drawing techniques. Differences in pencils and their uses, and some basics of shading. I am going to Draw the picture above step by step to show the process of making realistic pencil portraits.

Thanks for reading do you have any tips or methods that work for you when setting up your portraits, if so leave a comment below and let us know.

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