How to Draw a Face

How to Draw a Face How to Draw a Face The most important part of a picture is obviously the face. We get attracted to the faces because they depict the emotions better than any other part of the body. Be it happiness, excitement, sorrows, anguish or hatred, we can create these emotions only with the face. The eyes, mouth and the nose they are all in action when we need to show an expression. This is why probably we love to see the face in a painting. And this is why the first few lessons in drawing center around drawing different shapes and expressions with the faces.

Drawing a face can be a bit tricky and would need some practice, before you get the hang of capturing emotions with the face. Though drawing or painting is something that comes naturally to some people, one can always learn and do better. Keep it in mind that drawing a face would involve you knowledge about the right proportion of the nose, eyes, mouth etc.

First of all, get your drawing papers, pencils, erasers in place and set about drawing a face. You must keep it in mind that a male face and a female face are pretty different to draw hence, you must draw accordingly.

Steps to draw a face

If you want to draw a realistic picture then it is better to find a live subject like a photograph. Keep it before you and choose the different sections that you would be drawing. You can break a face into various sections like the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and hair.
Always start drawing your face with an outline. Make sure the outline is similar to the face shape of your subject. You can always try grid lines for the out line; it always helps to get the accurate shape. And it is easier to remove and draw again. In case you are a novice in painting, you can star learning with girds till you get a hang of it. Use a light pencil for the grids and a darker pencil to make the outline prominent.
Next thing you should pick is drawing the eyes. Even for eyes you can break it into sections like the upper lid, lower lid and the pupils. Draw the upper lid and draw the semi circle of the pupil in the exact position. Then you can slowly join the lower lid. You can draw out the lashes and remember that the upper lashes moving out wards while the lower lashes would be drawn sideways downward. Make the retina look triangular and fill with line strokes to make the retina look clearer and the rest of the pupil would have similar color.
Draw the nose next. You can notice that the nose would always have one side line clearly visible and the other side would be lighter. So draw accordingly. Make sure the tip of the nose has the curve as visible in your subject.
You can then draw the lips and keep the curves and shape of the lips of your subject in mind and do it with grid lines as well. You can fill in the lips with clearer and darker strokes.
You can also keep checking your subject and the face you are drawing to make sure you are doing it correctly.
Now make the hair with pencil strokes and if any ear is visible, you can draw that as well.

Now that you have learned the basic drawing of the face, you can try out different expression to practice well. you can either use the colors or pencil shades to draw realistic faces.