Face drawing - how to do draw a face
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Get some tips on how to draw a face
Rather than teaching an academic approach or skill the intention is to give inspirations for readers for their own discoveries and experiments.
All of my drawing lenses:
How to draw a tree
Landscape drawing - Improve your skills
How to draw a pine tree
How to draw decidous trees (mostly apple trees:).)
How to draw coniferous trees (some spruce trees)
How to draw buildings and houses
Drawing the urban landscape
Draw people in a landscape
The self portrait - somewhat of an adventure
Artists sketchbooks - little nothings turn into big somethings
Sketching gear - a guide for beginners
Drawing the urban landscape
How to draw with a pen
How to draw a straight line

Hi , you can call me Vincent
Some basic facts about the proportions of a human face
1. The eyes of most human faces are on a line which splits the face more or less exactly in two parts of same size : From eyes to the top of the head and downwards to the tip of the chin. These equal distances are marked with line a in the drawing below on the right side.
2. There are three parts in a face of almost equal proportion marked with line b in the drawing below on the right.
a. the forehead,which stretches from the hairline to the eye brows
b. from the eyebrows to the tip of the nose
c. from the tip of the nose to the tip of the chin


I have used a blue ball pen to trim the drawing on the left to more correct proportions. The forehead was stretched a bit to much and the distance between tip of the nose and the tip of the chin is a bit short. However individual faces can deviate quite a lot from these general rules,which are nevertheless helpful as they can make you aware of the individual look of a face.

Light and shade on a face
A face stude in water color

In this face study from a photograph I have used brown for the drawing. Light ocre for the bright side and blue for the shadows.
Creating volume in a face drawing
Face study in oil colors and pen
Click on images for larger versions!
On the left there is a quick sketch in oil colors on large sheet of kraftliner paper. In this example the volume of the head and face is created by drawing with a brush in different tonalities. I used only three values. The middle tone was given by the paper. The dark values are represented in black and the brightest value with white oil color. This is a fast 10-15 minute study, as reference I used a photograph that shows the sleeping Andy Warhol.
The example in the middle uses line drawing. With lines one can describe the volumes and create different tonalities at the same time with more or less dense lines or hatching in various directions. In the third face on the right I used bundles of lines, some of them following the volumes of the face and some in independent direction.
Quick drawings of a face
studies from black and white photographs
Learning from David Hockney
Face and head drawings by David Hockney
There is a great gallery of his drawings on the official David Hockney website
I took this link from a great Squidoo lens on Hockney: David Hockney resources for artlovers. There is a lot of great material for example also videos/interviews with Hockney on that lens. I find Hockney so very interesting as he masters very precise drawings and a free or lose style.
David Hockney answers your questions
Ghee the guy is responding to Tateshots on Twitter
Surrealistic human face and animal t shirts
what is going on over my head?

Rat head - surreal t shirt
by editionha
Create a custom
t-shirt at zazzle

Chicken head
surrealistic T shirt
by editionha
View other Surreal T-Shirts

Carp head
surrealistic T shirt
by editionha
Browse other Carp T-Shirts
Get your face drawing book on Amazon
A face study in water colors

This study is a bit more expressive. Again there were mainly only three colors used, umber,blue,ocre and a bit of purple
David Kassan - drawing faces - videos
(Beware of the horrible background music in the first time lapse video..)
The Retro sucker cartoon head shopping bag
Unique shopping bag with cartoon head

Retro Sucker cartoon head graphic by editionha
See other Retro Bags
Interesting face drawings on the net

- Picasa Web Albums - Dhanan - Portrait_Drawings
- A set of pencil and pen drawings made deep down south in India
- Picasa Web Albums - Mr D Finn - Face drawings
- A set of 4 pages with 6 different emotional expressions on a face ! Really interesting.
- Urban Sketchers: Sketches on the bus in London 8
- These is a great face drawings or quick portraits by urban Sketcher Adebanji,London, done in the SUbway or on the bus...yes that seems possible
- Urban Sketchers: Theatre audience, St Albans
- This is a nice study of theater visitors by Urban sketcher Julie Oakley
- Making a Mark - Drawing a head
- A series of head drawings from life by british artist and blogger Katherine Tyrell.
Katherine typically uses fine line hatching to achieve volume in her drawings. Her work a great examples for using hatches in general and especially for head, face or portrait drawings - Faces on Laurelines - weblog of Laura Murphy Frankstone
- Artist Laura Murphy Frankstone has a great portfolio of face drawings and paintings on her weblog in various mediums and techniques.
- More Tokyo Train Sketches by LOK Jansen
- Lok Jansen has developed great skills in depicting faces with coherent lines, thus reducing the drawing to a minimum. It is amazing to see how little "amount" of lines is necessary to draw a face.... a must see
Face drawing on Squidoo
Face drawing online tutorials
- How to draw the face - Portrait Art Tutorials, lessons on portrait art basics.
- How to draw the features of the face - tutorial for the portrait artist. Lessons on drawing and sketching the face.
- How To Draw Anatomic Face In 2.5 Minutes - Video
- You can learn to draw a face like this.. It's very easy... Watch Video about How,Draw,Faces by Metacafe.com
- How To Draw Woman Face (girl, Female) 3/4 View Video Tutorial : - Video
- How to draw woman face (girl, female) 3/4 view Video tutorial : learn step by step. Learn how to draw face girl woman or female facial figure front v. Watch Video about Anime,Art,Body by Metacafe.com
- Learn How To Draw Faces
- A weblog that specialises in the "structure of Man". There is an interesting video demonstration of a face drawing
- How to Draw a Portrait of the Head - A lesson on Empty Easel Blog
- The most important part of a drawing is the start, not the finish. This tutorial will focus on how to start a portrait drawing, using basic blocking-in techniques.
More interesting drawing lenses on Squidoo
Good bye, hope to see you again on one of my other lenses !

Thank you for your visit - please drop a line or give feedback - or say hello
If you got a face drawing attach a link please !
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jonart
Dec 19, 2011 @ 2:07 pm | delete
- Again, a great lens....:)
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Seker22
Dec 6, 2011 @ 2:27 pm | delete
- Very cool. Great lens.
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Morgannafay
Nov 28, 2011 @ 3:34 am | delete
- This is an informative instruction on drawing the face and head! I'm loving your lenses and your work. HUGS
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aesta1
Oct 31, 2011 @ 8:27 pm | delete
- You inspired me to go back to drawing and painting again. This is a good lesson. Blessed.
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hessa_johnson Oct 18, 2011 @ 9:43 am | delete
- Very informative. I really like the third picture in your 'creating volume in a face drawing. Reminds me of drawings by Giacometti.
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