Learn How to Draw - Portrait Drawing Step by Step

Barring the bang of hair traversing the forehead, I rendered the hair with super-sharp HB and 2H pencils. I sharpen at least a dozen of each – they dull quickly and dull pencils lead to dull, life-less hair.

Having previously mapped out and blocked-in the major locks of hair made the finer rendering much easier, though, still, labor-intensive.

It is important to keep stepping back from the drawing to maintain an overview of the primary light/dark pattern. Detailing can result in flat chaos. Beware!

I deliberately avoided rendering the bang of hair for two reasons: first, is to illustrate the transition from the previous blocking-in stage; and second, the tonal interaction between the hair and flesh.

I have a decision to make here. Whereas the ear is definitely anemic and requires strengthening, I would like to maintain a pale, porcelain quality to the flesh tone.

Again, using super-sharp HB and 2H pencils I deepened and further resolved the tones in the face, ear and neck. As I progressed down the neck I left the drawing more and more unfinished.

The bang of hair is the last to be rendered. Holding off on this bang of hair helps ensure that the hair and flesh are unified into a coherent sense of spirit.

Rendering hair so that it reads naturally and with a rhythmic gesture is challenging. In this drawing it took me several hours to ‘do’ the hair and only about 45 minutes on the face and neck. Usually it takes as much time and effort to render the hair as it does the face and neck. The caveat here is that you must be spend as much care in prepping the hair as would in the rest of the portrait. The challenge when working from life is that you must have the hair blocked in and mapped out before the model takes their break. Otherwise the hair will very likely have changed when the pose is re-assumed. If the hair does change, you must stick to your guns. No chasing the hair locks. That is a chase you cannot win.

The strategy, then, is to devote a whole 20-30 minutes of a pose segment to the hair. Don’t wait until the last 2 or 3 minutes – otherwise the chase is on!