Tips on Pencil Portrait Drawing – Drawing Children

The drawing of children demands freshness and directness of purpose. Unfortunately there are not too many quick and ready rules. Let us just say that children’s portraits demand a sharp and patient eye.

For those who intend to do commercial portraiture the good news is that children’s portraits can be lucrative. There are very few artists who can competently render children.

Soft lighting works best for portraits of children. The child could be looking toward a bright light source. This sort of light source will illuminate the child’s face and create an introspective facial expression. The value stretch or range goes from light to medium with the eyes really dark.

Addressing the facial proportions of children in a general sense is somewhat of a waste of time. Their facial proportions change dramatically within a six month time span.

Suffice it to say that the younger the child is the smaller the face in relation to the skull. The eyes also appear larger although this can be deceiving. A child’s nose can be a nightmare to draw – there is nothing really to latch onto. And the mouth is extremely delicate and sensitive not to mention its constant motion if you draw from life.

If you do want to list some general proportions you can say that whereas an adult face is about half the size of the frontal skull side, a child’s face is about one-third of that size. Also, observe how small an infant’s neck is compared to the size of the head.

At its widest section, a baby’s face is about five eye widths wide. The width between the eyes is a little bit more than the width of an eye. Both the mouth and the nose are about the same width of an eye. Again, we must emphasize that these proportions are only a general rule and individual face proportions can be different. The above general rules can be used for

comparison purposes when you do your own careful observations of a particular face.
As always, start your drawing by striking the arabesque and then correcting the height/width proportions as necessary.

After establishing the primary facial proportions (i.e., the brow, nose, mouth, etc.) block-in the major light/dark patterns. Then, stump down the graphite using your fingers or a stump. To render and re-shape the lights use a clean kneaded eraser.

Now the features are carefully placed, sized and partially rendered. There are two things to remember here:

1. Your pencils must be very sharp, and

2. At this stage, you should never fully complete a feature. Render each feature no more than 50%.

Once the features are sized and placed as best you can, you can now further develop them. Do not neglect the hair and sides of the face. Everything should be brought up together. As you continue to draw you should always be on the lookout for errors in proportion and value.

In conclusion, the basic techniques used to draw a child’s portrait are of course always the same. Above, we listed most of the differences in proportion and form between an adult head and that of a child. Your mood when drawing a child should be one that reflects the innocence and the softness of a child.

Remi Engels is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter and expert teacher. Check out his Pencil Portrait Course and his Portrait Print Package Special

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Remi_Engels

How To Draw A Pencil Portrait

Yes, You Can Draw Pencil A Portrait

Believe it or not, many people don’t know what a pencil portrait is. It’s true! How do I know? Because not too long ago, I was one of them. I wouldn’t have given these delightful works a second thought, let alone learned how to draw a pencil portrait.

Oh sure, I’d seen them. I’d been to the mall. I’d noticed those black and white portraits of celebrities. I even used to own one. But I was dense enough about any type of art that I had no idea how the portrait had been created. If you had asked me, I probably would have said it was made with a computer! That fact that you have to actually draw a pencil portrait by hand just didn’t register.

It wasn’t till a couple of years ago that I began dating a woman who told me at one point that she liked to draw. At the time, my mind immediately went back to the game my sister and I used to play on rainy days. She’d name something and I’d have to draw it.

A couple of months later, she said she had some pencil portraits of me and she asked if I’d mind sitting for one. I was flabbergasted when she brought out 4 or 5 pencil drawings of my face. They were so real. So lifelike! Absolutely nothing like what my sister and I used to draw.

I was so impressed that she had actually drawn these with just a pencil. How was that possible? I ended up sitting for her many times. Eventually, I started to wonder if I could draw a pencil portrait myself. After all, I really enjoyed drawing for my sister all those years ago…

I did a little research online and found lots of tutorials. I learned the basics of drawing a human face. Pretty soon, I was drawing from everything. Magazines, photos; I’d draw anyone. I got to where I could draw a pencil portrait from memory of most people that I knew.

Eventually I could draw a pencil portrait well enough that anyone looking at it could identify the person I was drawing, if they knew the subject personally.

I liked this a lot! But the free tutorials I found online were limited in what they could teach me. It was all very mechanical. I wanted more.

So, I did some more online searching and finally chose a program that I believed would teach me to draw a pencil portrait better. And it did. It gave me the education I needed to draw realistic pe

How not to draw a pencil portrait!

ople the way I wanted to. I even gained enough confidence to ask my girlfriend to sit for me the way I had sat for her.

Unfortunately, we’ve long since broken up. But I’ll always be grateful to her for opening up the wonderful world of drawing pencil portraits to me. She gave me something I didn’t even realize was missing from my life.

If you have a budding artist inside of you, try to draw a pencil portrait. It may just open up something indescribable inside of you. Find yourself an online tutorial. Trust me, they are more informative than you may think.