Using a grid or tracing can be a great way for artists just starting out in portrait painting to create a lifelike, accurate sketch. It also can help experienced painters either save time or get their proportions a bit more accurate so they can concentrate more on their painting process.
But sometimes, it’s fun to just “throw off the training wheels” and do your sketch freehand. In fact, drawing freehand will enhance your ability to see intricate spacial relationships, shapes and contours that are vital at any stage in your painting.
You’ll learn to capture those small nuances that will make a person look like them.
What is the best way to draw freehand?
I’m not going to say I have the best method, but it has served me well in over 20 years of doing portrait art. I’d like to share that with you today, using this 8″ x 10″ commissioned portrait as an example…
Tools needed:
Canvas Burnt Ochre Prismacolor colored pencil Electric pencil sharpener White smooth eraser
Here is the 15-minute video tutorial. The drawing took almost an hour.
The rest of this tutorial–showing the entire process, from sketch to finished acrylic portrait painting (about 7 hours of video instruction)–will soon be available as an online class. You can get access to it, and several other pre-recorded painting courses by becoming a member of Realistic Acrylic Portrait School.
And now, here are the steps, based on my video, broken down…
Step 1: Locking in the Composition
In this step, you want to plot out where your drawing is going. Here’s a few rules of thumb for a good composition and accurate initial proportions…
-Fill the image area as much as possible -If you were to draw an imaginary line 1/3 of the way down from the top of the canvas edge, that line should go right through the middle of the face. -Don’t let any major lines touch the edge of the “picture plane” (edges of the canvas) -Look for the overall shape of the head: Is it oval? Long? Short and wide? -Use light, short, choppy strokes to capture everything at first. It will be much easier to adjust and erase.
Step 2: Suggesting the Facial Features
After plotting out your composition, you want to start filling in the facial features. It’s good to draw lightly at first. We just want to get the basic location on the face and the overall impression of what they look like.
Start with the eyes. The eyes (and eyebrows) are THE most important feature to capture correctly on a face.
Ask yourself…
-Where are they located in relationship to the top and bottom of the head? Usually eyes are right in the middle, but that can vary from person to person. -Are they large or small? -Are they close together or far apart? Usually eyes are about one-eye-width apart from each other. -Are the eyebrows straight or curved? Angled up or down? Thin or thick? -How much of a distance is there between the eyebrows and eyes? -What’s the shape of the eyes? Narrow? Rounded? Angled? -How much of the top eyelid is showing? Some people have prominent upper eyelids. With others you can hardly see it. -Are the eyelashes thick or thin?
Now, these questions will come more into play later on as you refine the sketch, but for now at this stage, just get the general idea captured.
Next, you’ll move down to the nose. It’s important to see the distance between the eyes and the nose and draw that. The shape between the nose and eyes forms a triangle. If you can get a sense for that shape, it will really help you out. Is the triangle wide or long?
I am not saying to draw a triangle on your sketch. Just use the concept to see that spacial relationship between the eyes and the nose and draw it accurately.
Notice the particular shape of the nose and nostrils and draw it in. Are the nostrils prominent or obscured? Is the nose wide or skinny?
Then, move down to the mouth. You’ll want to just get the overall shape. Here’s some rules of thumb for drawing the mouth…
-The top lip is usually thinner than the bottom lip -When smiling, the edges of the mouth usually line up with the middle of the eyes
-Don’t draw the teeth in too prominently. Just suggest them. Remember that the two front teeth are larger than the rest. -The bottom teeth, if showing, are slightly more than 1/2 the width of the top.
Step 3: Redefining the Facial Features
In this step, you will want to go over everything–the eyes, nose, and mouth: making sure your shapes are accurate. The overall size and proportions should be mostly locked in by this point. So what you’ll want to do is make sure the shapes on all the features match what you see in your reference photo.
Continue to ask yourself some of the questions in the previous step as you refine. And look at your reference photo 50% of the time to make sure you’re drawing what you see, instead of what you think you see!
Step 4: Shading in
Maybe it seems redundant to shade in during a sketch, but I find it very helpful. We don’t see any resting objects in this three dimensional world as separated by line.
No.
It’s the contrast between value and color that tells us where an object begins or ends.
So, line is great for plotting composition and initial shape of features, but it is not useful for actually conveying a three-dimensional form on a two dimensional surface.
Which is why I like to shade in my sketches.
Shading will tell you how puffy a cheek is for example. Or how much a nose protrudes outward. Or how small a chin may be. And if you can capture that in the sketch stage (without too much fuss) it will really help you in the painting stage.
The heavy lifting will be done for you. All you’ll have to do in the painting stage is darken those shadows and add more nuances to tie them together. And of course, add color information!
I use the side of my pencil to block in the shadows in large areas. For smaller areas, I’ll use the tip of the pencil.
Step 5: Final Touches
The portrait sketch should be looking almost done at this point. Basically, you just want to go over everything, and make sure all minute proportions and shapes are accurate. The BIG proportions should be dialed in by now.
This step should take just a few minutes.
Keep in mind, you won’t get the sketch perfect. There may be a few areas that are getting hard to erase because you’ve drawn over the area so many times.
That’s OK.
Many small mistakes can be corrected in the painting stage. As long as you have everything close, you’ll be fine.
Once the drawing is done, you can step back and look at it from a distance just to make sure you have the likeness captured close enough. If so, you will have a good foundation to begin your portrait.
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
Do you struggle sometimes with getting your acrylic portraits to look lifelike? Many artists do. It may be possible that you are making one or more of the three common mistakes I’ll mention in this article.
I’ve been painting portraits for nearly 25 years, and teaching for the last two. While teaching and critiquing students’ work, I’ve noticed similar mistakes crop up again and again.
The purpose of this article is not to put anyone down.
My goal is to simply show you a few of these mistakes–identify and take the mystery out of them–so that you can be intentional as an artist and avoid making them in your portrait painting.
So, to demonstrate, we’ll use a photograph of an attractive young woman. I’ll post it here in it’s unedited form. Obviously, this is not a painting, but rather a photo. But since we strive for realism that would be on par with a photograph (or better if painting from life) this picture will be an example of a fantastic, realistic portrait.
Notice the pose: the woman is smiling gently, the lighting is smooth and even over her face. If I painted a portrait like this, I would be very happy with the results, and I think you would too. The form of her face is accurate, the values, shading, tints and colors, are all in the right place.
That is why it looks realistic.
Now, using Photoshop, I edited this image, and I’ll do a side-by-side comparison between the original photo (we’ll call it the reference) and then the versions with the mistakes. I’ll show you three of the most common. But not many artists are aware of them. Here they are…
Mistake #1: Over-emphasizing certain details
An artist may see a wrinkle under the eye for example, or running from the nose to the mouth, but the tendency is to make it way darker than it really is–in real life–or as shown by the reference photo. It’s great to be able to see the detail, but too much detail can detract from realism, rather than create it.
You’ll notice angle of the eyebrows are exaggerated. Even the freckles are too large and too dark. That happens often. We observe a feature, a characteristic on someone’s face. But then we overdo it. Like a caricature, we unintentionally make it too prominent. And that detracts from realism.
Mistake #2: Over-simplifying complex shapes or angles
Artists may see the wrinkle stretching from the nose to mouth that shows when the subject is smiling. But they paint the shape as one straight line when, in reality, there are a couple different angles merging together to create what looks like one straight line.
In other words, they take a jagged kind of line and smooth it out.
The angle of the woman’s cheek and jaw on the left side (her right) is another example of this. Notice how in the reference photo, it has three distinct curves (you could call them hills) running from the eye down to her chin. But when this over-simplification mistake is made, those curves are merged together into one line–dull, lifeless, and inaccurate.
One final example would be the woman’s eyebrows. Whereas in the original reference photo they have a slight peak to them, here they are completely smooth and curved.
The result looks as if they are painted on.
In realism though, even though everything is painted on, we are always trying to defeat that fact, and create the illusion of three dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. Nevertheless, the mistake of over-simplifying details often persists.
Why?
Because, as human beings we want to order our world–make things look more even, more refined. But in nature, there is randomness; that’s the way God created it.
There is beauty in that irregularity. So we need to learn to see what’s really there, and paint that, rather than what we think is there. That is always the challenge. Every artist, no matter how experienced, has to fight that tendency, myself included!
Mistake #3: Painting (and drawing) symbolically rather than representationally
We are taught from childhood that eyes are white, blond hair is colored yellow, lips are red, and so on.
That’s just how we learned to color our coloring books. And so we take that into creating realistic paintings. And we end up with eyes that are way too white, and all the other things.
In reality, eyes actually appear grey, and they can be darker than the skin around them.
Why?
Because the eyebrow ridge, eyelids, and eyelashes cast their shadows over the eye, but once you get below the eye into the cheek, the shadow dissipates. And the skin is actually lighter in value that the eye. That is just one example. But we make that mistake more often than we realize.
You can see from the image how odd it looks to have eyes that are that white. Especially when you compare it side-by-side with the reference photo. The reason is that the values are just completely incorrect with reality.
A tool to help you paint better values and realism
A great tool to overcome this is the Value Checker tool. You can print this out, and what you do is hold up the square that has the closest color and value next to the area in question on your painting. Then set that same square above the corresponding area on your reference photo–and see what the difference is.
Get the downloadable, printable Value Checker Tool from Realistic Acrylic Portrait School to double check the values in your portraits and make sure they are accurate.
Do you need to go darker or lighter?
Or, do they match? That’s obviously what we’re shooting for. If they don’t, now you know exactly how far off you are, and you can adjust as needed.
It’s not cheating.
It’s a tool to double-check yourself and help you do your best work possible.
You can download a full resolution version, below, for free and then print it out and keep it as a handy tool in your studio. Let me know how it helps.
I’ll sum up with this: it’s a never ending struggle to paint realism, because we have to fight inherent human tendencies. But it’s a worthy struggle. If you continue in the battle, you’ll amaze yourself at the beauty you can add to the world with your well-crafted fine art portraits.
Here’s my advice on how to improve…
Be aware of these three mistakes. That’s the first step. Then you can catch yourself making them.
When you do, make the necessary adjustments by carefully observing your reference photo. Print it out smaller and tape it with low-tack tape onto your canvas so it’s right next to what you’re painting. Study it and compare the difference.
If you can’t see what to do next, ask an artist friend to critique your work–or ask me. I’d love to help.
However, just the fact that you read this article to the end shows that you have what it takes to improve and create a realistic portrait that you can be proud to show. May God bless you in your portrait painting adventures!
All the best,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
To create a realistic portrait you need a lot of different elements all working together.
The main three elements are accurate form, value, and color.
All of these elements are tied together, and even overlap a bit. Today, I want to show how form and value work together, and how you need to represent value accurately to portray correct form.
One of my students recently asked to have his portrait critiqued, while in the sketch stage. As I was recording his critique, the idea of capturing value to portray a realistic likeness came up.
In other words, if you want the person you’re painting to look like them, you have to pay close attention to the shadows. It’s just as important to capture these shadows as it is to draw the features such as the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. with correct placement, proportions, and shape. The ability to see the shadows on a face is vitally important to create the illusion of three-dimensionality on the canvas. You need to be able to see the inherent shape of a shadow from your reference photo–its hard edge and soft edge.
On a photograph that can be hard to discern.
You have an almost unlimited array of values with micro-nuances that can make it very challenging to see the “big picture” of the main shapes of the shadows. But if you can train yourself to see those main, abstract shapes you will go a long way to being able to draw and paint realistically.
By the way, the edges are defined not only by shadows, but differences in value due to the actual value (light and dark) of the objects themselves. (For example, the contrast between the man’s flesh tone and white suit. Or, on a smaller level, the difference between his black beard on his dark brown skin.
There are borders to all the shadows and values Your job is to see the most obvious edge, pick a line, and define it.
Watch the video below and I’ll show you what I’m discussing here, using this student’s portrait sketch (supplied with his permission) as an example.
Mastering the ability to see shapes within the shadows takes practice. But it all starts with being aware of the need to do so. As you hone in this skill, you’ll see these shapes all over the place, learn how to paint what you see, and your portraits will come alive with realism!. Visit other free tutorial here.
Yours for realistic acrylic portraits,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
