Figure Drawing: The Portrait

Course details

Artists have been drawing the portrait for centuries. One of the best ways to practice drawing the head and features is to start with understanding the structure and proportion of the skull. Once that foundation is established, adding expressive features is easy. In this course, instructor Amy Wynne begins with an introduction to the skull’s key landmarks and proportions from three views: frontal, three quarters, and profile. Next, Amy shows you the facial features and the key muscles that act on them to create expression. She demonstrates techniques to simplify the head and features into easy-to-draw geometries that allow you to add basic tonal rendering. Amy also goes over the head’s attachment to the neck and shoulders, as well as compositional choices in portraiture.

Concepts

Introduction

Figure drawing - The portrait
Courses to support your portrait practice
Using the exercise files

The Skull

Visualizing subcutaneous skeletal landmarks
Learn the frontal proportions of a skull
Learn the 3 4 view proportions of a skull
Learn the profile proportions of a skull
Challenge - Draw a skull from three views
Solution - Draw a skull from three views

The Features

Draw eyes
Draw a nose
Draw a mouth
Draw ears
Challenge - Draw three views of each feature
Solution - Draw three views of each feature

Expressions

Understand muscles acting on the forehead and eyes
Understand muscles acting on the mouth and nose
Challenge - Draw expression and emotion
Solution - Draw expression and emotion

X-Ray Vision - Overlaying Features

Overlay features on a frontal skull, attach neck shoulders
Overlay features on a 3 4 skull
Overlay features on a profile skull
Challenge - Draw features on top of a skull
Solution - Draw features on top of a skull

Conclusion

Demo - Putting it all together
Next steps