Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Drawing from life is difficult, it often requires a lot of patience and practice, but over time you will learn and be able to draw a very beautiful portrait. With the right techniques, tools, and observation skills, you can learn how to draw real art!

Steps

1. 1 Find a model or photo. Make sure the photos you choose match your drawing skills. If you are just starting to paint, then you should not take a photo with too many complex shadows, or a photo taken from an unusual angle. Start simple. If you already have experience in painting portraits, you can try something a little more difficult to test your skills.
   • Decide if you want to draw a man or a woman. Typically, male portraits have richer shadows; it's easier or not, it's up to you to decide. Women, in turn, have longer hair - some find it boring or difficult to draw a lot of hair.
   • Decide if you want to paint a young person or an old person. The faces of older people are more interesting to draw, but also more difficult because of the additional lines and textures - however, thanks to them, the portrait turns out to be expressive. It is easier to draw very young children, but if you are used to drawing adults, on the contrary, it may be more difficult for you.
2. 2 Draw the general outline of the face and head. To do this, take a harder pencil, 2H (in the domestic marking 2T), and if you do not have pencils of different softness, then use a mechanical pencil. These pencils draw thinner, lighter lines that are easier to erase if you need to make changes to the sketch.
   • Next, sketch out the main features of the face - eyes, nose in several lines, ears and lips, but do not draw shadows.
3. 3 Don't invent anything. Draw only what you see. If there are no bags under the eyes, do not draw them. If you only see 2-3 lines around the nose, do not add additional lines to make it more visible. Adding non-existent details is quite risky because they may not be true and ruin the image you are copying.
   • You can add details that are not visible in the photo later if you don't want your portrait to be an exact copy.
4. 4 Start painting shadows. As a rule, this process scares most of all those who draw a portrait, but it is thanks to the shadows that the object in the picture becomes "alive".
   • Identify the lightest and darkest parts of your face.If you want the portrait to look voluminous and more dramatic, make the lightest parts as light as possible (use the hardest pencil) and the dark ones as dark as possible (use the softest pencil).
5. 5 Make the most of your observation skills. Shadows and facial features will look realistic and photographic if you constantly interrupt and compare your drawing to the photograph. There is no need to compare too closely, especially if you are just starting to paint, because any portrait will never be an absolute copy of a photograph.
   • Remember, to paint a good portrait, you need to capture the model's unique features and facial expressions. If the model has a rather large nose, don't try to make it thinner. If the model's eyebrows are thin and whitish, do not try to make them fuller. The portrait should convey the appearance of a real person, and not an ideal representation of him.
6. 6 be patient and take your time. If you paint in a hurry, the quality of the portrait will suffer.

Tips

• The first time you’re not going to do it well enough. If you're just starting out with drawing people, understand that skill only comes with practice.
• If you want to make money by painting portraits or painting for study, it's best to start learning about the anatomy of the human face and body to better understand how muscles and bones function together.
• If you want to colorize your portrait later, try to make a copy first so that you have the original black and white version (in case you don’t like the way you painted the portrait).
• If you want to learn how to draw realistic portraits like in a photograph, do not overdo it with the outline, try to blend the pencil lines with a cotton swab or clean paper napkin to get the desired skin tone.

Warnings

• You don't need to be a perfectionist! To some extent, all artists are gripped by perfectionism, but most people cannot paint a perfectly similar portrait. All that is required of you is diligence.

What do you need

• Plain pencils (with different hardness of the graphite rod: ebony (soft and very dark) 2H (2T), 4B (4M) and so on)
• White eraser
• Sharpener for pencil
• Sketchbook (sketchbook)
• Photo or other source