How to draw a portrait with a pencil in stages for beginners: tips and tricks

Don't know how to draw a portrait with a pencil in stages for beginners? Even a young artist will be able to cope with this task. Read useful tips and tricks that will help you to correctly determine both the choice of the sheet format and the way you perform the work. Be patient and stock up on inspiration.

What is required

If you decide to study the information on how to draw a portrait with a pencil in stages for beginners, then you are planning to do this work seriously, so you should prepare everything you need in advance. To draw you will need the following:

• A sheet of a suitable format (A4 or A3, the first one is optimal for the first experiment).
• A set of simple pencils of different softness.
• Eraser.
• Pencil sharpener or sharpener.
• The soft eraser is a "nag" that allows you to fix hatching errors without damaging the paper.
• Ruler for building markup.
• Transparent film, if you transfer the image from the photo.

Of course, creating a portrait is not an easy task even for real artists. People with experience work using only a pencil and their skill. It is permissible for a beginner to draw construction lines on a ruler and even draw an image from a photograph in cells.

Ways of working

To create portraits with a simple pencil, you must first draw on the sheet a contour diagram that copies the facial features of your model. This can be done like this:

1. If you are doing a portrait from nature, that is, a living person is sitting in front of you, mark the outline of the face, the guide lines and the main dimensions of the eyes, lips, nose on the sheet. If in doubt, use a ruler. Already by marking, draw the elements themselves.
   
2. When you have a photograph as a template, you can put a transparent film on it with a ballpoint pen grid with cells, for example, 1 cm. The same matrix should be built on its sheet, while the side of the square is saved or made larger. In the second case, the portrait will increase by the corresponding number of times relative to the photo. After applying the grid, you are directly involved in drawing the contour, analyzing how the lines are located relative to the guides. Transfer to the sheet as closely as possible. The more cells you have, the more accurately you can redraw the outline.
   
3. Another method is for lazy people who own a computer. Process the photo in a graphic editor, turning it into a contour image, print a template on a sheet and transfer a linear pattern through glass to your sheet for portraiture.

As you can see, you have several options for how to more accurately convey the proportions of the face, but only the first is more or less professional, except for advice to use the ruler for a beginner.

How to draw a portrait with a pencil in stages for beginners

So, you have applied the outline marking. It should be noted that it is better to choose a sheet format for a portrait vertical and place the face approximately in the center so that there is free space on all sides. Below it is better if the figure ends just below the shoulder line. Then work like this:

1. Analyze where there will be dark places on the face. Start hatching with them. Glare is the lightest areas, do not hatch at all, at least not at first.
2. Fill strokes with midtones. Try to see all objects as volumetric details (eyes, nose, lips). They are not in the same plane, therefore, on each element there are lighter and darker parts.
3. Shade the hair to show that the head is voluminous. After this, apply strokes showing the structure of the hair. They are better placed in the foreground, and along the contour in contact with the background, do not apply unnecessary details.
4. Lastly, work out your shoulders and clothes. For the first time, leave the background white or make a smooth gray transition from the outline of the head to the edges of the sheet. If you sketch the entire sheet in full, there is a risk that the portrait will merge with the background and the work will turn into a solid "carpet".
5. If your glare has completely disappeared, carefully remove the hatching in these places with an eraser, and preferably with a special nag or a regular white bread makshima.

You can prepare a frame for your picture.

Portrait of a pencil from a photograph

If you have a flat picture in front of you, it’s much easier to work with than with live nature. It is enough to redraw the contours of the cells, as described previously, and perform the entire sequence of actions from the previous section. The stages of work are no different in these two ways.

Thus, you learned how to draw a portrait with a pencil in stages for beginners. This is not a very difficult task, especially if you use some tricks in your work. Take a pencil, a sheet of paper, an eraser and begin the practical lesson.