Drawing the Human Face

Created exclusively for Craftsy

by Paul Heaston
& Sandrine Pelissier
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Meet the Experts

02 Bringing Faces to Life

06 How to Draw Facial Features

11 Tips for Drawing Realistic Eyes

14 Drawing Lips Tutorial

18 Keys to Drawing Realistic Hair

PAUL HEASTON SANDRINE PELISSIER
Paul Heaston was born and raised in San Antonio, Sandrine Pelissier is a watercolor, acrylic and mixed
Texas. He received his BFA in painting from the media artist from Canada. She is inspired by the
University of Texas, San Antonio in 2002 and West Coast landscapes but also enjoys painting
his MFA from Montana State University in 2008, portraits and life drawing. While her paintings seem
where he continued on as a faculty member. He to be fairly realistic she likes to experiment and add
is an obsessive sketchbook-keeper and spent 6 a touch of abstraction. She has been published in art
months between 2008 and 2009 meticulously books and magazines including the Splash, best of
drawing every building in downtown Bozeman, watercolor series, the mixed-media book Incite, The
Montana, in a pocket-sized sketchbook. Heaston Artist’s Magazine, Watercolor Artist magazine and
is a correspondent for Urbansketchers.org, an International Artist magazine.
internationally known Web site showcasing visual
journalism all over the world, and in addition
maintains his own sketch blog, Three Letter Word
for Art (http://paulheaston.blogspot.com/). He
lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife, Linda, and
their dog Freddie.

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DRAWING A REALISTIC HEAD
Bringing Faces Alive

By Paul Heaston Heads and faces are some of the trickiest things to draw–so let’s
focus specifically on those parts. Because we spend all day looking
at them, we are very aware when something is a little off in a
drawing or painting.
While lots of repetition and direct observation are the most important
things you can do to sharpen your skills, here are some useful tips to
keep in mind as you practice drawing a head.

1. KNOW YOUR 2. REFINE THE JAWLINE.

PROPORTIONS. If you are drawing a woman,
Heads are not perfect circles, this egg shape might do well
and they are not perfect ovals to describe her jawline, but
either. You can think of them let’s say we’re drawing a man
as kind of egg-shaped, with the with a slightly more angular
tapered end toward the bottom. jaw, and flatter chin. Let’s bring
Of course this varies depending the jawline out.
on the actual person and the
angle you are seeing them from.
But let’s start with an egg…
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3. WHERE TO PLACE THE EYES?
Well, we have a tendency to think the eyes are closer to the top of the
head than the bottom, because they are the highest facial feature. But
that’s not really the case.
As you can see, the eyes are just about halfway between the bottom
of the jaw and the top of the head. There is a lot of head above the
eyes, as any of us with a receding hairline know. But I skipped a step
here–how far apart should the eyes be? How big should they be?
4. A GOOD RULE OF THUMB IS THAT THE HEAD
IS ABOUT 5 EYES WIDE.
That means the gap between the eyes where the bridge of the nose
is located is about the same width as the face on either side of
the eyes. Like any rule of thumb, it’s important to remember this isn’t
always the case, and that this applies only to drawing the face
head-on in a portrait.

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 6. NOW LET’S PLACE THE EARS.
Locate the tops just above the eyes, and bring them down to a point
almost halfway from the eyes to the bottom of the jaw. Depending on
the person, the ears can stick out a lot or a little, so there’s not a good
rule for that other than careful observation.
Well, what do you know, now you have a great idea about where to
locate the nose!

7. ADD THE NOSE.

Noses do vary quite a bit in width, so keep that in
mind. The sides of this guy’s nose extend a little
past the inside corners of his eyes.

8. THE MOUTH IS A BIT TRICKIER.

Rather the mouth itself being halfway from the
earlobes to the jawline, use that halfway point for
the bottom lip. The width of the corners of the
mouth often extend to about the location of the
iris in the eyes above.

9. EYEBROW PLACEMENT.
This is another feature that varies greatly from
person to person. Do keep in mind each eyebrow
is generally wider than the eye below it. They also
tend to be thickest toward the bridge of the nose
and taper toward the sides of the face, where they
often also sweep downward.

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10. DON’T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF PLACING
THE HAIR ON THE VERY TOP OF THE HEAD!
The hairline is typically about ¼ to ¹/3 of the way
from the top of the head to the eyebrows. Or in Sir
Patrick Stewart’s case, behind the top of the head.
These proportions work just as easily for a woman.
Adjust the jawline to be a little more rounded, make
the ears a bit smaller and the neck a little narrower
and you have a pretty convincing female face.
The other cool thing about knowing your
proportions is you can use them to draw a head
in profile too! Just extend your proportion lines
across and you have a great way to keep your head
proportions consistent.

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NOW FEATURING:
How to Draw Facial Features

By Paul Heaston Facial features are what makes a head unique and give it character.
Facial features are the cues we use to recognize the people we know,
and the way we remember new faces, so they are extremely important
to any effective portrait. Here are some simple tips everyone should
know about drawing those facial features just right.
Let’s look at the face in front view and profile again. The blue
horizontal lines serve to show how different features line up in each
point of view.

This a great reference for facial proportions except for one problem–in
the real world, you’re not likely to only see the face in front and profile
view. More often, the face will be somewhere in between, and could
be tilted up or down. We call the view of a face that is angled more or
less halfway between front view and profile a three-quarters view face.
This oil self portrait I did from a mirror is a classic example of a
three-quarters view face. You might have noticed many of the
proportion rules for a front view face are different, particularly the
relationship between the eyes, nose and mouth. Let’s look at each
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© 2013 Paul Heaston
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 of these features separately in front, profile and three-quarters view.
EYES
Notice on the eye in profile just how far back the eye is from the
bridge of the nose. This is because our brow and the bridge of our
nose protrude from the face to protect the eye. Also notice that the

disc of the iris in profile is only a sliver. In the middle three-quarters

view the eye, including the iris, is foreshortened, or compressed a bit
from side to side. Because the eyeball itself is a sphere, the bottom
and top lids wrapping around the eyeball stop more abruptly on the
far side, and taper more gently on the side facing us. In all three views,
you can also see very clearly how the top of the iris meets and goes
under the top eyelid a bit, while the bottom contour of the iris remains
visible. Remember, unless your subject is surprised, you will almost
never see the entire iris.

NOSE
The nose is a bit trickier. The contour of the bridge of the nose is most
clearly visible in profile view, a little bit in three quarters, and only
softly defined in full frontal view. Value can be used to better indicate

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the shape of the bridge in the more frontal views. In the profile view,
notice that the walls of the nostrils meet the face much further back
than the septum (the middle part between the nostrils), which meets
the upper lip directly under the bridge of the nose. In three-quarters
view you can start to see both nostrils. Note also that the nostrils,
which we think of as being at the bottom of the nose, start a little bit
higher than the actual bottom.

LIPS
In this person’s mouth, notice there’s a little bump at the center
of the top lip. Not everyone has one this pronounced, but there
is often something there. A thicker line along the bottom of this bump
is a good way to indicate its volume with just line. The bottom lip
is usually (but not always) thicker than the top lip, and is generally
a simpler curved shape, whereas the top lip is a bit more complicated.
In addition to that bump, the top lip often has a depression in the
center along the top from the philtrum (that funny little divot between
the nose and lips). It’s best to indicate the top of the top lip more
faintly than the bottom, where a thicker
line can indicate that is overhangs the
bottom lip just a bit.

EARS
I’m only showing you two views of the
ear, as the differences between a profile,
a front view and a three-quarters are
pretty subtle. Ears can vary quite a bit
from face to face. Some people have
hanging lobes, some are connected,
and some have shallow depressions and
ridges within the ears while others don’t.
It helps to think of an ear as something
like a semicircle with a ridge around
the back edge, the doubles toward the
bottom to becomes two ridges. The
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 outer ridge flattens and becomes the earlobe, while the inner ridge
starts from somewhere inside and underneath the outer one and stops
with a little bump above the lobe. Ears can be tricky, but with a little
practice they are conquerable.

A good exercise is to try drawing your facial features individually in a

mirror from different angles. How do they change as you look at them
from below or above?

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THE EYES HAVE IT
Tips for Drawing Realistic Eyes

By Paul Heaston While we’ve already talked about how to draw facial features, the eye
is probably the most challenging facial feature to draw for a variety of
reasons. They are the first feature we notice about someone when we
meet them. Almost all of our non-verbal communication is through
eye contact. Eyes reveal far more about a person than, say, the nose
or ears. There is a reason they are called “the windows of the soul.” For
all these reasons, it can be quite frustrating getting them just right, so
here’s a few tips to make drawing realistic eyes a bit easier.
Many of us learned a simple visual formula for drawing eyes as
children. For years the eyes I drew looked something like a football
with two circles inside for the iris and pupil.

Of course, no one’s eye really looks like that. The most important thing
to remember about drawing realistic eyes is to draw what you see, not
what you know. Every person’s eye is different and no visual formula,
even if it’s more sophisticated than the one above, can substitute for
the real thing. That said, there are a few things you’ll notice most eyes
have in common.
AN EYE IS ASYMMETRICAL.
Rather than tapering smoothly to a point on either end, an eye has
subtle differences in the shapes of the top and bottom eyelids.
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 Notice above that the top eyelid is flatter along much
of its length than the bottom, except where it curves
downward to meet the tear duct on the left. The
bottom lid is curved along most of its length, with the
most pronounced curve being where it sweeps up to
meet the top eyelid on the right. This brings me to our
next observation

THE HUMAN EYE IS THREE-DIMENSIONAL.

Your eyeball is a sphere, but most of it is concealed
by your eyelids. Notice above how the eyelids look as
though they are wrapping around that spherical shape.
This is even more evident in profile view.

THE IRIS IS ALMOST NEVER COMPLETELY VISIBLE.

Unless the person you are drawing is surprised, most of the time the
iris will be covered partially by the top eyelid, as seen in both examples
above, and in some cases both the top and bottom eyelids will cover
some of the iris, as in when your subject is squinting or sleepy.

THE TOP EYELID CASTS A SHADOW ON THE EYEBALL.

Because the top lid projects out a little further than the eyeball itself,
and also in part because it has the thicker set of eyelashes, it casts a
shadow along the top of the eyeball in most lighting situations. This
can be easily depicted simply by making the line of the top eyelid
thicker than the bottom.

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HOWEVER, THE TOP EYELID RECEIVES MORE LIGHT THAN
THE BOTTOM.
The best way to draw a realistic eye is to use value to suggest volume.
I’ve used gray to show how value can do this for the line drawing
below, but the same effect can be achieved with other kinds of mark-
making as well.

Assuming an overhead light source, the underside of the brow

overhangs the eye and is therefore in shadow. The upper eyelid
faces upward, so it receives light, and it also casts a shadow on the
uppermost portion of the eyeball. The eyeball itself is curved, so the
bottom receives less light than the top. The bottom eyelid faces down,
and receives little light, and also cast a shadow on the portion of the
face directly beneath it.
It’s important to remember that every eye is different. Some people
have heavy eyelids or heavy brows, some almost no eyelids or brow at
all. Thinking about how value suggests three-dimensionality can help
you go a long way toward drawing realistic eyes.

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DRAWING LIPS
A Step-By-Step Tutorial

By Sandrine Pelissier Mona Lisa’s smile has captured the imagination of millions of viewers,
showcasing the importance of the mouth in a work of fine art. After
the eyes, the mouth is perhaps the most expressive feature of the face,
and is fundamental to convey the feelings of the individual.

Portrait of Charlotte by Sandrine Pelissier; oil dry brush technique

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Follow these step-by-step instructions for drawing lips
accurately:
Before going into the details of drawing the lips, here are a few tips to
help with their placement on the face:
• The bottom lip is usually at the same height as the angle of the
jaw.
• The outer corners of the closed mouth are in vertical line with
the inner corner of the iris.
• The central line of the mouth, also called aperture, will be
roughly situated at 1/3 of the distance between the bottom of the
nose and the chin line.

STEP 1: DRAWING THE APERTURE LINE

The first step is to draw the line of the aperture. It is not a straight line,
so it’s important to pay attention to its specific curve.
To start, draw three vertical lines: two for the width of the lips at
each outside corner and one at the center line. As the head is tilted
in this example, the center line is not in the middle but at about a
1/ – 2/ location. Very often that aperture line will be the darkest part
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of the mouth.
Note: There are a few differences when drawing male lips and female
lips — the central line is often more defined on women’s lips that on
men lips. Men lips tends also to be thinner with a less defined outline.
For this example, I am drawing female lips.

STEP 2: PLACING THE MAIN MASSES

The upper lips can be divided into three masses and the lower lips
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 into two masses. Here, I did roughly draw the masses of the lower and
upper lips. The depression above the mouth is called the cupid bow.

STEP 3 : PHILTRUM SHADE AND PLACEMENT OF NODES

The crease between the upper lips and the nose is called the philtrum.
Here, I outlined the cast shadow on the philtrum.
I am also added more details, such as the small depressions at the
outside corners of the mouth, which are the nodes. I find that the
best way to think about nodes is to think about a doughnut’s shape.
Because the mouth is from a 3/4 view point, the node on the left side
is in perspective.

STEP 4: LIP CREASES

Start to work on some shading. I did also place some skin creases on
the lower lip. Each lip has a bit more than 20 creases, but most of the
time, only the most important ones will be visible. They might almost
completely disappear when a person is smiling and become more
visible with age.

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STEP 5: SHADING THE LOWER LIP
Still working on the shading; the lower lip did catch some cast shadow
from the upper lip.

STEP 6: SHADING THE UPPER LIP

The top lip is usually a bit darker if
the light source comes from the top
because of the cast shadow. Here, my
light source was on the left.
The edge of the upper lip is a flat area
that will often catch the light–you see
it on this drawing on the right side.
STEP 7: SHADOW UNDER THE
LOWER LIP
Most of the drawing was made with
an HB pencil, but for the last stages
of shading, I did use a 4B so I could
make the dark areas darker and add
more contrast. The shadow under
the lower lip helps define the volume
— that shadow is usually darkest at
the center. Very often, the upper lip
is overlapping the bottom lip and you
can see it in the central part.
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CONQUERING THE COIFFURE
Keys to Drawing Realistic Hair

By Paul Heaston Drawing realistic hair can seem daunting because we artists sometimes
get caught up in just how many strands of hair we can see, and lose
sight of the big picture. The key to drawing great hair is to think about
shape and value, and not always the finest details.
As with so many aspects of drawing, less is often more. Overworking
any area can detract from the rest of the image, and hair is one of
those areas that can easily be overworked. For the ultimate lesson in
just how simply hair can be drawn, look at George Seurat’s The Artist’s
Mother from 1883.

Image via WikiPaintings

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There are no individual strands and dramatic highlights. Only her subtly
drawn part gives any indication of the shape of her hair, while the
lightness at the top tells us it’s probably light brown or blonde, rather
than very dark.

How to Draw Realistic Hair

STEP 1:
To begin drawing hair, start with drawing of the face and head.
Even if your subject has big hair, it’s important to understand where
the head is located underneath. The head determines how the hair
falls, whether or not the hair is full-bodied and coarse or thin and
limp. It is useful to indicate the shape of the hairline at this phase, and
show the location of the ear, even if you know it will partially
or completely covered by hair.

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 STEP 2:
Using a light pencil, draw your outline of the shape of the hair. You
can draw lines to indicate the shape and direction of the hair, but
be careful not to get carried away at this point. Note that hair does
not always fall down away from the top of the head. In this woman,
the hair at the front of the hairline is pulled back behind the ear,
and it droops enough that the shape of hairline between the ear and
top of the forehead is concealed. This will not always be the case,
so observe carefully.

STEP 3:
Using a darker drawing tool such as conte crayon or charcoal, start to
lay down the location of the darkest values in the hair. It often helps to
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use the edge of your too here, and to lay down the values in blocks,
rather than think too carefully about the direction of the hair.

STEP 4:
Finer and narrower areas of value can be laid down using a charcoal
pencil. Some areas need to remain light, as they will serve as your
highlights. Also, remember that it’s not necessary to indicate every hair.
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 STEP 5:
You can allow some lines to cross the highlights, but not all. For the
most part, the highlights will follow the contours of the head. Some
strands will cross over others, and may have different highlights if they
project out or do not follow the shape of the head, as with the group
of strands behind the woman’s ear.

This drawing could be simpler still. Even if you only focus on shape and
value within the hair, you can still show hair effectively, as the Seurat
drawing at the top illustrates.

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This is just the beginning. For more in-depth, detailed instruction
on how to create compelling portraits, from drawing animated eyes
and an authentic smile to transforming your portrait from flat to fully
dimensional with highlights and shadows, sign up for the online class
Drawing Facial Features (www.craftsy.com/class/drawing-facial-
features/294), taught by expert Gary Faigin, author of The Artist’s
Complete Guide to Facial Expression.
See Craftsy’s entire collection of fine art classes at www.craftsy.com/
classes/fine-art.
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