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Learning how to draw: Tricks of the trade |
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On this page I will use some stuff from my archive to demontrate some tips that will help you
bring your drawings to life. But first I'd like to say a few things about your materials. Get
the best quality you can. Work in a sketch pad and leave the pictures inside, it will keeps them from yellowing
as quickly. NEVER use scotch tape to attach your pictures, it ends up leaving brown patches on
the paper, as you will notice on some pieces from my archive.
Get some charcoal fixative, and spray your finished pictures to keep them from smudging.
In a pinch you could use hair spray. You will need a selection of pencils: the ordinary HB is good for doing guidelines,
rough outlines and details, but you will need softer leads for shading, and a charcoal pencil. Later you can experiment
with different weights and surface textures of paper, to add variety to your shading results.
You will also need a good soft eraser. A nice soft architects brush is great for sweeping away erasure debris, as it
doesn't smudge the work.
Doing faces has some math involved: fractions and geometry, but don't let that
put you off. What that means is that generally the bottom of the nose is halfway down the face.
The eyes are halfway between the bottom of the nose and the hairline, and the mouth is halfway between the bottom of
the nose and the chin.
If you look carefully at faces you will notice how vertical lines help keep things in proportion
too. The round flare of the nostril lines up with the inner corner of the eye; the outer corner of the mouth sits under
the middle of the eye. There is usually the same distance as one eye between the eyes; if you look closely at my picture
of Patrick (in the gallery) you'll notice that his eyes are too close together. Don't worry about perfection, often
slight errors in the early details can be disguised by using shading to capture a recognizable expression.
It's all about the fun of doing it; not in being perfect. Your hand/eye coordination will develop as you practice;
something that's a bit off can have it's own beauty.
There are diagonal lines too: the outer point of the eyebrow follows the corner of the eye,
past the flare of the nostril to the middle of the mouth; the line across the top of the brows, and down the other side
of the face form a triangle. This helps when drawing profiles too.
From the side: the bottom of the ear sits level with the bottom of the nose; depending
on the nose, there are always some variations in faces. The top of the ear sits level with the eyebrow. Look at
the picture to the right. Kim's ear is not level with her nose, because she is looking down; you can see the top of
her head. In a case like this you look for another point on the nose that lines up horizontally to help you keep the
features in perspective.
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