Lesson 13 - Portraiture with Training

Materials needed:

pencil paper ruler

Most beginning artists believe portraiture is one of the hardest things to do. With a few simple lessons in proportions, portraiture is made extremely easy. Before you begin, please look at some of my students' very first self-portraits.

Assignment: Portrait with Training

1.	On your piece of paper, I'd like you to draw an egg that fills up the WHOLE paper. (Make sure your paper is in portrait view)
2.	With a whisper line (the lightest line you can draw), draw a line down the center and one more line half-way up.
3.	Where the two lines meet, you're going to draw a football shape with whisper lines
4.	Using your pencil as a measuring tool, measure the size of this football shape and transfer it to both sides of the football. You should now have 3 footballs in a line.
5.	On the sides of these 3 shapes, there should only be room for a half of a football (eye) apiece. (So you may have to decrease the width of your egg or increase the size of your footballs). Get rid of your middle football (it should be pretty easy if you made it with whisper lines).
6.	Next, you're going to draw a line halfway down from the middle of the eyes to the chin.This is where the tip of your nose will be.
7.	Draw whisper lines from the inside corner of your eyes all the way down to this line.
8.	Between these lines, lightly draw 3 ovals: small, medium, small
9.	Erase or lighten the top parts of each circle and extend the shape of the middle one.
10.	Measure from the tip of the nose to the chin, draw a line halfway in-between. This line will become the bottom edge of your lips.
11.	Draw whisper lines from the center of your football-shaped eyes down to this line. These will mark the corners of your mouth.
12.	Lips are a series of flattened ovals. The top lip overlaps the bottom and has a slight indention.
13.	Erase all whisper lines before you add details.
14.	Eyes have both a lower lid and an upper lid. Most people make the mistake of making the iris too round (so it looks like the eye is bulging out). Only about 2/3s of it should show.
15.	Add eyebrows and ears. Your ears usually start at your eyebrows and end at the bottom of your nose. At this point, use a mirror so you can see the shape of the inside and outside of your ears.
16.	Beginners have a tendency to make hair look like it's a hat or toupee instead of it actually growing OUT of your head. Always start with an upward motion. Also, make sure the hair doesn't cling to the skull; it should rise above the skull and look "fluffy."
17.	Wrinkles make a person look older. Take a mirror and make faces to see where wrinkles form.
18.	Just to show I'm not gender biased...

You will be turning two things in for this assignment. Your portrait without any training and your portrait with training. The first one will be used to measure improvement only.

You will be graded on a 1-6 scale on the following:

• The eyes are halfway between the top of the head and the chin
• The bottom of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin
• The mouth is halfway between the nose and the chin
• The corners of the mouth line up with the centers of the eyes
• The top of the ears line up above the eyes, on the eyebrows
• The bottom of the ears line up with the bottom of the nose

TURNING WORK IN? You may scan your work, use a digital camera, or use snail mail (send to the address on the contact page). Use the assignment links below to upload your files; if you're sending your work by snail mail, use the assignment links below to tell me WHEN you sent it. (If you're not sure how to upload or send files by snail mail, review the Procedures page.)

Submit your Portrait Without Traning here.

Submit your Portrait With Traning here.

Excellent examples will be posted with permission of the artist.

Done? Please check it off on your Timeline.