Paint a Portrait
A portrait is a lovely remembrance of a friend or pet. Learning how to paint portraits of people or animals is a skill that, when developed, can earn good extra income. Drawing a portrait is also a challenge even for the most experienced, talented artist. John Singer Sargent, the famous portraitist of the Edwardian Age, was known to quip "a portrait is a likeness of a person with a little something wrong with the mouth"! Be patient with yourself, and keep practicing every day!
Steps
- If you have never drawn a portrait before, do as Van Gogh did: draw yourself! Using a drawing paper pad, or even some xerox paper taped to a sturdy board, a conte crayon or piece of vine charcoal (a soft pencil will do, too) and a mirror, sit in front of the mirror and study your features. Set up your working area so that there is a light coming from one side. If you are right handed, the light should be on your left side and slightly above you.
- Find a piece of paper that is larger than your head so your drawing will be the same size as your portrait subject, in this case yourself. Hold your head steady while drawing. Use your eyes, not your head, to look down at your paper. Don't move your head from side to side. There are several approaches artists use. I will start with my favorite portrait artist's, Richard Schmid's: look at one of your eyes. Study it carefully. You will draw the eye first and work gradually out from there, comparing proportions and measuring carefully.
- Look at how the upper lid is in relation to the lower one. Is there a prominent fold above the eyeball or not? Are the eyebrows bushy or thin, arched or straight or sloped? Very lightly draw an oval on your paper that is approximately the proportion and shape of your left eye.
- Don't worry about the rest of the head, hair or neck for now, but leave room on the paper for them later. It's easier to draw a face the first time if you are looking straight-on to the mirror. Most faces are fairly symmetrical but not perfectly so. Notice the distance from the right eye to the left. Using the width of the eye as a basic measuring unit, gauge the width of that space between the eyes and carefully draw the outline, lid and iris of the left eye, then mark the space between the eyes; then draw the outline and some detail of the right eye. Indicate the direction and width of the eyebrows.
- Draw a very light plumb line down the center of that space between the eyes to the bottom of the chin and up to the hairline. This will help keep your drawing symmetrical.
- Measure your eye-width unit and compare that distance to the distance between the inside corner of one eye to the bottom of the nose. Make a light, short line at the bottom of the nose. Compare the width of the eye to the width of the nose. Make a mark on either side of your plumb line indicating the width of the nose. Then compare the distance between the bottom of the nose and the separation of the lips. Keep checking those proportions! Getting those proportions right is what makes a good portrait or likeness.
- Look for the width of the cheekbones and make a light mark to indicate those, then work sideways to the ears. The ear is a very complex thing to draw, and quite unique to each person. The top of the ear is usually somewhere around the level of the eyebrows, but again, look carefully before you draw. Each person's face is unique!
- Indicate the character of the chin and jawbone.
- Indicate the height and width of the hair, and carefully draw the outline of it, adding masstone in the value of lightness or darkness of the hair. Don't worry about details! When you look at someone's hair, you notice the color and shape, not the individual hairs. It should be the same in your drawing.
- When you have your proportions indicated, look at areas of light and dark in your subject. Gently shade some of the darker areas to get a sense of dimension. Work on the darkest areas first -usually the iris. Leave white for the curved highlight on the iris. Notice that the eyeball is curved and that one side of the eyeball is slightly in shadow. Look carefully at the proportion and location of the highlights.
- Notice the shape and proportions of the upper and lower lids of the eyes. Don't worry about lashes - they can be gently indicated by a darker line later on.
- Indicate the shape of the skull and the curves of the flesh that cover it by gradually shading the sides of the face and jaw, the eye sockets, the dip in the skull above the eyes, then pick out some of the lighter areas in the masstones of the hair.
- Gently shade the shadow side of the nose and try to capture the unique shape of it, especially the tip. That is another characteristic point of the face.
- Notice the dip between the two halves of the upper lip and gently shade the shadow side of that and the shadow side of the upper lip, toward the corner of the mouth.
- Notice the areas of light and dark on the mouth and gently shade those; then the receding area below the lower lip. The lower lip casts a shadow but don't make too much of it. Finally, indicate the shadow side of the jaw, indicate the neck and collar, with some shading on the neck to make it believable and pick out a few lights in the hair with the corner of your eraser. You're finished! But don't stop there! Keep at it! You will only get better!
- Don't work from photos! Keep doing self-portraits until it comes easily to you, then ask a friend to sit for you for an hour or so. They can watch tv, which you can set up behind you, perhaps? Or have them read a book. Their eyes will be looking down and not towards you, however. Working from life is always better than working from photography, especially at the beginning. Photography doesn't show all the detail or the subtle changes in value that are essential to a good portrait.
Tips
- It's really important to look at a face as not a collection of separate features but part of an organic, functioning whole. If you get the shape and proportions of the skull right, you're three-quarters of the way there!
- To make a good skin colour when painting, mix red and white with a touch of green.
- Practice, practice, practice!
- Observe nicely and draw.
