Portrait Sketching 101
This session will get you started on a lifetime artistic engagement with faces!
- About this session
- Entry Requirements: None
- What will we learn in this session?
- 3-D modelling
- Caricature
- Line and Tone
- Student feedback
- Book this session
About this session
Open up the rest of your life to a growing engagement with something you look at each day... faces!
You probably have someone special in your life whose face you really admire. Well, get more enjoyment from that face by learning to sketch it!
This session will get you started on a lifetime journey.
Entry requirement
You must have completed at least one session of: Sketch 101: See the world as a sketch artist!.
This portrait session assumes you are comfortable with:
- Sketching technique
- Cezanne's method
- Michelangelo's method
- Creating form with tone
What will we learn
Portrait types:
- Profile
- Front
- 3/4 view
Beginning approaches to portrait sketching:
- Caricature and visual imagination
- Line and tone (pencil and charcoal)
Beginning approaches to facial features:
- Eyes
- Nose
- Mouth
3-D modelling
I use 3-D modelling in the session to help you analyse the faces we are sketching.
Caricature
Caricature and iterative learning.
We do our first sketch and then consciously exaggerate the vertical and horizontal dimensions.
Monet was an expert caricature artist. Caricature is one of the most effective ways to exercise your visual imagination.
Line and tone
Using a combination of pencil and charcoal to create a very quick and expressive sketch. This example took about 60 seconds.
Profile view
Profile views.
3/4 view
The most common portrait is the 3/4 view, as it presents an assymetric and dynamic view of the face.
Student feedback
Thanks for such an enjoyable session! I certainly feel I could now approach drawing a portrait. Loved your 3-D software.
Therese.