Drawing a face can be one of the more daunting things to draw. But it’s about how you approach it. Below, you’ll learn about proportions of a face one step at a time. So don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it!
Feel free to go through the steps creating new faces as many times as you’d like and send in pictures of your work either through DM on Insta @kara_artwork or email at karaglassartwork@gmail.com!
Setting up
Let’s get started! It may seem weird at first but a face shape is kind of like an egg shape. Go ahead and start by drawing a face shape. Here’s a visual cheat sheet.
Your eyes may not be where you expect them to be! Your eyes are in the middle of your egg head! (Not actually the Egghead...you can google it for a good laugh!) Your nose is halfway between your eyes and chin. And your mouth is halfway between your nose and chin. Setting yourself up with a light sketch will save you lots of erase marks later (although that’s okay too!). Here’s an example of my sketch. Add these guidelines lightly in your drawing!Rough sketches are part of the process. I do quick sketches before refining later. Stay tuned for that. One step at a time will bring success here.
Eyes and Eyebrows
The eyes are like almonds. The bottom of an eye is like an upside down sad rainbow. The top is a sadder rainbow, but the right way!
Eyebrows are a bunch of small lines or hairs that grow upward, aka starting at the bottom and tapering up. You’ll draw a bunch of mini lines upward, and then begin to angle and overlap them to make the hairs look more natural. See here:
Nose
Ah, my most troubling feature but there are tricks to make it easier! The top should almost connect to the eyebrows, and the nostrils are some of the darkest features of the face. Look at an example here:
Mouth and Face Shape
Lips, like all features, differ from person to person. I tend to make lips look like my own, where the top has a little dip in the middle. The bottom is like a wiiiiiide short U shape.
Woo! We made it to the point of going from egghead to human head. When faces look slightly in a direction, the face shape comes in slightly (dips in) by the eye of the direction the face is looking. Also, women tend to have softer chins and men’s are more pronounced. This the part when it looks more realistic! We just had to be patient...
Ears and Hair
The top of the ear is at the same level as the eye and the bottom of the ear is at the level of the tip of the nose. And the shape tends to be a rounded shape connecting the two points. Who knew faces were like geometry. I don’t show an ear in my final piece here but I show you where it would be and how it’s lined up in the picture.
Hair is so fun because you can make it slick straight, bouncy curls, in a pony, a Mohawk, have bangs, or one single strand squiggling away. Up to you! Here are some examples. Remember that hair goes beyond your top head line to look more realistic. That is a common mistake. Have fun with it!
Feel free to add a shirt or outfit of some sort too.
You did it! Congratulations!
This truly is SO hard and every time you practice is a big win. You should be SO proud of yourself for tackling something you might have been afraid of for years or if you just wanted to test out a new style, props to you too! Trying something new can be scary and you conquered that today. Now go celebrate with ice cream, a chocolate chip haha, or your favorite sweet treat!
If you’re at the point of exhaustion, that’s okay!! You can stop here with a pencil or ink drawing.
If you want to bring in some color. Take note of shadows where colors get darker and highlights where colors are lighter. Learn more about that in a later blog post!
Reach out by DMing me at @kara_artwork or emailing me at karaglassartwork at gmail.com with what you want to see a blog post on and what you are creating!! Also planning to make some online classes. Excited!!