I have other blog pages on doing a portrait, individual features, and skin color. This time I wanted to focus on the values and shapes in the face, making gentle transitions in tone to create roundness, and I felt it would be helpful to do it in a monochrome. That way, I can work out many of my problems in drawing and shading first, and not have to also worry about what color to use at the same time.
In order to model a face, it is important to know how to place the features. Even if you are tracing from a photograph, you can make mistakes in the drawing. For example, you might think you are tracing the line of the nose, when you are actually tracing the shadow. Even though you think you have the features correct, once you start painting, you can easily paint the feature to large or too big.
A SUGGESTION IF YOU ARE GOING TO TRACE:
If tracing, I would print a copy on regular paper. Then, using an ultra fine black sharpie, go over the basic shapes on the printed copy. These dark lines will show up much better if using a light box. Also, don't put in too much detail. Suggest places where there is a curve or change in light. But too many lines, especially in a child's face, can make a picture look over worked and older.
Reference Photo
Rough sketches.
Here are just a few of the sketches I used to get to know the subject. Top left is using a boxed in method to find the placement of features. This view is not only 3/4 view, but I am looking at her from above. So I wanted to be able to picture the PLANES of the face and angles.
Top right I used the Loomis method. She looks like she has a mustache because I was trying to locate the "muzzle" around the mouth. This helps with how it should be shaded.
Bottom left uses the oval method, locating eyes at center. Bottom right also uses the Loomis method.
The purpose of making some rough sketches is to get to know the face better. Just tracing doesn't give you enough information. Also, knowing how a "normal" face is proportioned helps you find the idiosychrosies of the face you are drawing. So when you draw, you look for what is out of the norm. Is the nose longer? Are the eyes more wide set? Is the chin pointed or angled? Things like that.
Normal division of oval method vs. Loomis method. On the left you see the normal way a face that is not angled would be divided up. You make the oval, divide it in half top to bottom and sideways. Pupils of the eyes are right above the center horizontal line. Find the browline.
Then you divide the face into thirds: top third is hairline to brow line; middle third is brow line to bottom of nose; bottom third is bottom of nose to chin. More thirds: in the brow to nose area, the top third is the glabella (keystone shaped bone); middle third is ridge; bottom third is the "ball" of the nose composed of cartiledge.
Bottom third is divided into thirds: First third is the center of the mouth; bottom of second third is top of chin.
The face is divided in other ways. We usually talk about how many "eyes" long something is. The entire front view of a face at the eyes is five eyes wide. There is one eye space between the eyes. The width of the nose is usually one eye, and you can draw a line straight down from the inner eye to the width. Draw a line down from the pupil to the corner of the mouth.
LOOMIS METHOD: I am attaching links to Proko.com videos on this method of drawing the head. It begins with a circle, has elipses drawn to the side, then you draw the chin down from the points where the elipses meet. The videos do a better job than I can.
There are several other methods, but these two are most commonly used.
One thing you have to remember when drawing using the oval method, is that as soon as the angle changes, you have to take the egg shape into account. The line for the eyes is no longer a straight line, but a curve that indicates that there is more than one plane. You can see this curve in the four head sketches I did above.
A SUGGESTION FROM JAN KUNZ: When sketching the head, she uses tracing paper. She'll do the basic oval and placement lines and features. Then she'll put a piece of tracing paper over that and only use the features, and continue working on that. That means less erasing and less confusion from lines she no longer needs.
So here is the sketch I finally came up with. I think the eye on my left is a little too large. In a 3/4 view, that eye is usually smaller because of foreshortening.
I took my drawing and, using pencil, started shading in the features. This is where I really got to know more about the face. I discovered I originally had the left part of her forehead too high and the right eyebrow too thin. It will be a lot easier to paint once I know what values I want these areas to be. Also, I am delaying doing anything with the hair in case I decide to paint it long.
I transfered my sketch onto cold press arches. I decided to use burnt sienna with burnt umber or french ultramarine added to it to create darkest tones. On the first wash, I just wet the entire skin and hair area. (I paint skin tone right into the scalp area to prevent it looking like a wig) Also painted right over the eyes. I painted in burnt sienna darker on the left side of the face and other darker areas. I dried it, then shaded in more. This is what it looked like after the second wash.
I kept working in glazes until I was able to get the value changes I wanted. I still have at least one more pass to round out the neck, and that left eye is too large. See how the iris is the same as the one on my right? Too big.
So here are some references for Stan Prokopenko's videos of the Loomis method of drawing a face from any angle (most are only 5 minutes or so):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ZLkyTuX_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS6R2l8t8wo
There are several books I really like that are helpful in portraits. One is Painting Watercolor Portraits that Glow by Jan Kunz.
Lee Hammond has a book, Lifelike Portraits from Photographs, that teaches using the graph method for transfering a face from a photo.
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