Portrait Drawing Lessons:
Drawing Children in Graphite

Portrait Drawing Lessons - Drawing Children in Graphite 1

Gesture and composition are as fundamental to portrait drawing as achieving the likeness.

The forward leaning tilt and the subtle tensing of the shoulders combined with my slightly elevated view immediately caught my attention. The gesture of any pose is captured right from the start by correctly rendering the arabesque or outer overall shape of the composition. You see the likeness of the sitter at once. I cannot emphasize the importance of this stage enough.

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When drawing children I much prefer natural poses worked from a photograph taken while the child is at play. I don’t want the look of a Walmart studio photographic portrait, but a portrait filled with the life and character of the child. This young girl was about to jump in a swimming pool and I wanted to compose the drawing with the child on the left with plenty of air around the direction she was moving to convey space and movement.

Additionally I felt that it is high time that I present a tutorial featuring beautiful rich ebony flesh tones.

This is a small drawing, the head measures only 4 ½” (12 cm), as such the choice of media must reflect both the physical demands and sensitivity to the subject. Physically the media must be capable of being sharpened to a razor point to enable a satisfactory rendering; a crumbly media such as soft pastel or conte crayon would be extremely challenging, but not impossible.

Employing a medium such as sanguine conte for this young girl would likely present an incongruous effect. Hence the subject quite often dictates the medium. I have chosen graphite pencil as it meets the two former suggestions; graphite is easily sharpened and holds a point more readily and my feeling is that the additive process of cross-hatching with graphite to build up the tone appeals readily to my intent. Drawing Children: the tondo canvas utilized black conte in a subtractive process. This drawing lesson presents another approach.
Portrait Drawing Lessons - Drawing Children in Graphite 2

The materials used herein are: a quarter sheet of Fabriano Ingres charcoal paper, an 8B, HB and 4H Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils, a well-used kneaded eraser, medium grade sandpaper, safety razor blade (not shown) and a 12” knitting needle (advanced artists can also use the knitting needle as a plumb bob (shown later), beginners are well advised to use the plumb bob). You’ll also need a drawing board and I recommend an easel.
Portrait Drawing Lessons - Drawing Children in Graphite 3

Within a syncopated Square Root 2 canvas (I’ll discuss this later) using a sharp 8B pencil I quickly strike the construct. The construct is a more structured arabesque. The arabesque denotes the entire outside shape whereas the construct also places elements of the figural gesture. In figure drawing one relies almost exclusively on the construct as their beginning. This pose suggests, in the tensed shoulders, the figural gesture.

The trained artist will have little trouble sketching an accurate construct and/or arabesque. Unfortunately, the untrained artist will encounter their first obstacle here.

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