Beginner Drawing Lessons

Portrait Drawing Lessons

Portrait Painting Lessons

Within the arabesque, or contour, is found the likeness, gesture and even the spirit of the sitter. The remainder of every portrait drawing and painting is built upon this one element.

Over the years numerous gadgets have been invented to offer artists shortcuts and aids to help establish the initial markings and placements for drawings and paintings. Some of these include grids, proportion/perspective finders, relational measuring sticks, projectors, etc. At times these can prove useful but with varying degrees of success. All too often, however, is the over-reliance on these gadgets; the temptation is to draw through them.

What I mean by this is that some artists will hold up a grid, for example, to their object and draw what they see through the grid. Needless to say, this is a poor practise. First, the drawing will very likely be flat and lifeless; and worse, the artist will not develop their skills, they will remain stuck and addicted to their gadgets rather than training their eye to see. You do not need expensive gadgets, what you need is just a few simple and inexpensive tools.

In the same amount of time it takes to set up a gadget and calibrate it to your drawing you could simply just look at the object (i.e., a portrait, still-life, landscape) and quickly and assuredly strike the arabesque. And this is where the magic of drawing and painting first manifests itself, through the artist’s expression which is far more organic.

It only takes a week or so of directed training to acquire the rudiments of this skill. Spending just two hours a day for a week will literally save you years of struggle and stalled progress.

The Materials Required

In this lesson I suggest using head-shot photographs that are no smaller than 6x8”). Small photographs will not work for these drills. Avoid using photographs that were taken with a flash. Photographs taken outdoors quite often present a dramatic and simple light and dark pattern.

You do not need high quality paper for these drills. I used 8x11” sheets of white cartridge paper taped onto a small drawing board.

Use a variety of drawing media. For the first drill I used an 8B Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil. For the second drill I switched to a 6B Wolff’s carbon pencil. And for the third drill I used sanguine conte.

Also required for these drills is a small sheet of plexiglass which you can often buy in framing or art stores, or a few letter size acetate sheets or binder page protectors will also work and a black, (preferably water-soluble) marker with a fine or medium felt tip. Don’t use one with a super fine tip nor one with a large blunt tip. If you are using throwaway sheets of acetate then a permanent marker will also do. If you don’t use plexiglass, make sure whatever clear plastic you use is fairly stiff because you will need to hold it up to your drawing from a distance.

Melanie’s first strike of the arabesque
of The Turkish Girl