Portrait drawing

PORTRAITDRAWING

BY WENDON BLAKE/DRAWINGS BY JOHN LAWN

WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS/NEW YORK

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Copyright © 1981 by Billboard Ltd.

Published 1981 in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publicationsa division of VNU Business Media, Inc.,770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003www.watsonguptill.com

Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication Data

Blake, WendonPortrait drawing.

(The artist's painting library)Originally published as pt. 3 of the author's

The drawing book.1. Portrait drawing--Technique. I. Lawn, John.

II. Blake. Wendon. Drawing book. III. Title.IV. Series: Blake, Wendon. Artist's painting library.NC773.B57 1981 743'.42 81-11533ISBN 0-8230-4094-1 ААСR2

Ail rights reserved, No part of this publication may bereproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic,electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—withoutwritten permission of the publisher.

Manufactured in U.S.A.

First Printing. 1981

16 17/04 03 02

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CONTENTS

Introduction 4Getting Started 5Equipment 6Form and Proportion 8Drawing the Eye: Front View 10Drawing the Eye: Three-quarter View 11Drawing the Eye: Side View 12Drawing the Eye: Tilted View 13Drawing the Mouth: Front View 14Drawing the Mouth: Three-quarter View 16Drawing the Mouth: Side View 18Drawing the Mouth: Tilted View 19Drawing the Nose: Front View 20Drawing the Nose: Three-quarter View 21Drawing the Nose: Side View 22Drawing the Nose: Tilted View 23Drawing the Ear: Side View 24Drawing the Ear: Front View 25Drawing the Head: Front View 26Drawing the Head: Three-quarter View 30Pencil Drawing 34Demonstration 1. Blond Woman 36Demonstration 2. Brown-Haired Man 40Demonstration 3, Black Man 44Demonstration 4. Dark-Haired Woman 48Chalk Drawing 52

Demonstration 5. Dark-Haired Man 54Demonstration 6. Blond Man 58Demonstration 7. Oriental Woman 62Charcoal Drawing 66Demonstration 8. Brown-Haired Woman 68Demonstration 9. Black Woman 72Demonstration 10. Gray-Haired Man 76Lighting 80

3

INTRODUCTION

Portrait Drawing. The human luce is so endlesslyfascinating, so infinitely diverse, so expressive of themost delicate emotional nuances that many artists havedevoted their lives to portraiture. Every sitter is differ-ent, presenting a new and fascinating challenge to theartist who must capture not only the form and detail ofthe sitter's face, but also the unique flavor of the sitter'spersonality. The same face can change radically with aslight turn of the head or a slight difference in the direc-tion of the fight. And us the sitter's mood changes, theemotional content of the portrait changes ton. Thus, theexpressive possibilities of portraiture are so great thatdrawing the human head can become an obsession—one of life's most delightful obsessions—and you mayfind this subject so absorbing that other subjects seemtame. Like so many artists throughout the centuries,you may discover that there's nothing more excitingthan watching a real human being come to life on pa-per. For the artist who's fascinated by people, thehuman face is the ultimate subject.

Form and Proportion. In the drawings of the greatRenaissance masters, the complex form of the humanhead is often visualized very simply—as an egg shapewith guidelines that wrap around the egg to define theplacement of the features. In the first few pages of Por-trait Drawing, you'll learn how to put this elementarydiagram of the head to work. You'll learn to draw theegg shape in line and then make it three-dimensional byadding light and shade. You'll learn how to convert that"Renaissance egg" into a variety of male and femaleheads, seen from various angles: front view, side view,three-quarter view, and finally, a view of the head tilteddownward. It's important to memorize this egg shape—and the placement of its guidelines—so that you canthen adapt it. with subtle changes in proportion, to anyhead you may draw.

Drawing the Features. One of the best ways to learnto draw is to look over the shoulder of a skilled profes-sional as he draws, then try it yourself. You'll watchnoted artist John Lawn draw each facial feature, step bystep, from a variety of angles. You'll see him drawmale and female eyes—front, three-quarter, and sideviews, as well as tilted downward. In the same way,you'll learn to draw the male and female nose andmouth a.s seen in these same four views. And finally,you'll learn how to draw (he ear as seen from the frontand side of the head.

Drawing the Complete Head. Having mastered thebasic form of the head and learned how to draw the fea-

tures, you'll then watch John Lawn put all this informa-tion together into demonstration drawings of completemale and female heads. You'll watch him build theoverall form of the head and the forms of the individualfeatures, from the lirst sketchy guidelines to the finaldrawing, fully realized in light and shade. The step-by-step demonstrations of the features and the completehead all show four fundamental stages in executing asuccessful drawing: blocking in the forms with simpleguidelines: refining the contours: blocking in the tonesin broad masses; and completing the drawing by refin-ing the lines and tones and then adding the last touchesof detail.

Complete Portrait Demonstrations. After demon-strating the fundamentals. Lawn goes on to demon-strate, step by step, how to draw ten complete portraitsof different types of sitters, including various hair andskin tones, ages, racial and ethnic types. The demon-strations also show how to render diverse lightingeffects that accentuate the character, beauty, and ex-pressiveness of the individual head. The demonstra-tions are grouped according to drawing medium. Thereare pencil drawings of a blond woman, a brown-hairedman, a black man, and a dark-haired woman. Chaikdrawings include a dark-haired man, a blond man. andan oriental woman. Finally, there are charcoal drawingsof a brown-haired woman, a black woman, and a gray-haiied man. Each of these step-by-step demonstrationsshows every druwing operation, from the first stroke onthe paper to the last, The demonstration section con-cludes with a brief review of four different types oflighting that are particularly effective in drawing por-traits: each type is illustrated with a drawing that ex-plains how the specific method of lighting affects thecharacter of the head.

Drawing Media. Each stcp-by-step portrait demon-stration presents a different method of rendering form,texture, and light and shade in pencil, chalk, and char-coal. You'll see how form is rendered entirely withlines and strokes; how tone can be created by blending,so that pencil, chalk, and charcoal handle like paint;and finally, how lines, strokes, and blending can becombined. The demonstrations are executed on a vari-ety of drawing papers to show you how the drawingsurface influences the lone and texture of the portrait.These various techniques, drawing tools, and papersare dramatically illustrated by close-ups of sections offinished drawings, reproduced actual size.

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4

GETTING STARTED

Keep It Simple. The best way to start drawing is toget yourself just two things: a pencil and a pad of whitedrawing paper about twice the size of the page you'renow reading. An ordinary office pencil will do—buttest it to make sure that you can make a pale gray lineby gliding it lightly over the paper, and a rich black lineby pressing a bit harder. If you'd like to buy somethingat the art-supply store, ask for an HB pencil, which is agood all-purpose drawing tool, plus a thicker, darkerpencil for bolder work, usually marked 4B, 5B, or 6B.Your drawing pad should contain sturdy white paperwith a very slight texture—not as smooth as typing pa-per. (Ask for cartridge paper in Britain.) To get startedwith chalk drawing, all you need is a black pastel pencilor a Conte pencil. And just two charcoal pencils willgive you a good taste of charcoal drawing: get onemarked "medium" and another marked "soft". Youcan use all these different types of pencils on the samedrawing pad.

Pencils. When we talk about pencil drawing, we usu-ally mean graphite pencil. This is usually a cylindricalstick of black, slightly slippery graphite surrounded bya thicker cylinder of wood. Artists' pencils are dividedroughly into two groupings: soft and hard. A soft pencilwill make a darker line than a hard pencil. Soft pencilsare usually marked B, plus a number to indicate the de-gree of softness—3B is softer and blacker than 2B.Hard pencils arc marked H and the numbers work thesame way—3H is harder and makes a paler line than2H. HB is considered an all-purpose pencil because itfalls midway between hard and soft. Most artists usemore soft pencils than hard pencils. When you're readyto experiment with a variety of pencils, buy a full rangeof soft ones from HB to 6B. You can also buy cylindri-cal graphite sticks in various thicknesses to fit intometal or plastic holders. And if you'd like to work withbroad strokes, you can get rectangular graphite sticksabout as long as your index finger.

Chalk. A black pastel pencil or Conte pencil is just acylindrical stick of black chalk and, like the graphitepencil, it's surrounded by a cylinder of wood. But onceyou've tried chalk in pencil form, you should also get arectangular black stick of hard pastel or Conte crayon.You may also want to buy cylindrical sticks of blackchalk that fit into metal or plastic holders.

Charcoal. Charcoal pencils usually come in twoforms. One form is a thin stick of charcoal surroundedby wood, like a graphite pencil. Another form is a stickof charcoal surrounded by a cylinder of paper that youcan peel off in a narrow strip to expose fresh charcoal asthe point wears down. When you want a complete "pal-

ette" of charcoal pencils, get just three of them, marked"hard," "medium," and "soft." (Some manufacturersgrade charcoal pencils HB through 6B, like graphitepencils; HB is the hardest and 6B is the softest.) Youshould also buy a few sticks of natural charcoal. Youcan get charcoal "leads" to fit into metal or plasticholders like those used for graphite and chalk.

Paper. You could easily spend your life doing wonder-ful drawings on ordinary white drawing paper, but youshould try other kinds. Charcoal paper has a delicate,ribbed texture and a very hard surface that makes yourstroke look rough and allows you to blend your strokesto create velvety tones. And you should try some reallyrough paper with a ragged, irregular "tooth" that makesyour strokes look bold and granular. Ask your art-supply dealer to show you his roughest drawing papers.Buy a few sheets and try them out.

Erasers (Rubbers). For pencil drawing, the usualeraser is soft rubber, generally pink or white, whichyou can buy in a rectangular shape about the size ofyour thumb or in the form of a pencil, surrounded by apeel-off paper cylinder like a charcoal pencil. For chalkand charcoal drawing, the best eraser is kneaded rubber(or putty rubber), a gray square of very soft rubber thatyou can squeeze like clay to make any shape that's con-venient. A thick, blocky soap eraser is useful for clean-ing up the white areas of the drawing.

Odds and Ends. You also need a wooden drawingboard to support your drawing pad—or perhaps a sheetof soft fiberboard to which you can tack loose sheets ofpaper. Get some single-edge razor blades or a sharpknife (preferably with a safe, retractable blade) forsharpening your drawing tools; a sandpaper pad (like alittle book of sandpaper) for shaping your drawingtools; some pushpins or thumbtacks (drawing pins inBritain); a paper cylinder (as thick as your thumb)called a stomp, for blending tones; and a spray can offixative, which is a very thin, virtually invisible varnishto keep your drawings from smudging.

Work Area. When you sit down to work, make surethat the light comes from your left if you're right-handed, and from your right if you're left-handed, soyour hand won't cast a shadow on your drawing paper.A jar is a good place to store pencils, sharpened end upto protect the points. Store sticks of chalk or charcoal ina shallow box or in a plastic silverware tray with conve-nient compartments—which can be good for storingpencils too. To keep your erasers clean, store them a-part from your drawing tools—in a separate little box orin a compartment of that plastic tray.

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5

EQUIPMENT

Pencils. The common graphite pencil comes in manyforms. Looking from right to left, you see the all-purposeHB pencil; a thicker, softer pencil that makes a broader,blacker mark; a metal holder that grips a slender, cylindricallead; a plastic holder that grips a thick lead; and finally arectangular stick of graphite that makes a broad, bold markon the paper. It's worthwhile to buy some pencils as well astwo or three different types of holders to see which ones feelmost comfortable in your hand.

Chalk, Shown here are four kinds of chalk. Looking fromthe lower right to the upper left, you see the small, rec-tangular Conte crayon; a larger, rectangular stick of hardpastel; hard pastel in the form of a pencil that's convenientfor linear drawing; and a cylindrical stick of chalk in a metalholder. All these drawing tools are relatively inexpensive,so it's a good idea to try each one to see which you like best.

Charcoal. This versatile drawing medium comes in manyforms. Looking up from the bottom of this photo, you see acylindrical stick of natural charcoal; a rectangular stick ofthe same material; a charcoal pencil; another charcoal pen-cil—with paper that you gradually tear away as you weardown the point; and a cylindrical stick of charcoal in a metalholder. Natural charcoal smudges and erases easily, and soit's good for broad tonal effects. A charcoal pencil willmake firm lines and strokes, but the strokes don't blend aseasily.

Erasers (Rubbers). From left to right, you see the com-mon soap eraser, best for cleaning broad areas of bare pa-per: a harder, pink eraser in pencil form for making precisecorrections in small areas of graphite-pencil drawings; abigger pink eraser with wedge-shaped ends for makingbroader corrections; and a square of kneaded rubber (puttyrubber) that's best for chalk and charcoal drawing. Kneadedrubber squashes like clay (as you see in the upper right) andcan take any shape you want. Press the kneaded rubberdown on the paper and pull away; scrub only when neces-sary.

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6

EQUIPMENT

Drawing Board and Pad. Drawing paper generallycomes in puds that are bound on one edge like a book. Mostconvenient is a spiral binding like the one you see here,since each page folds behind the others when you've fin-ished a drawing. The pad won't be stiff enough to give youproper support by itself, so gel a wooden drawing boardfrom your art-supply store—or buy a piece of plywood orfiberboard. If you buy your drawing paper in sheets, ratherthan pads, buy a piece of soft fiberboard to which you cantack your paper.

Storage. Store your pencils, sticks of chalk, and sticks ofcharcoal with care—don't just toss them into a drawerwhere they'll rattle around and break. The compartments ofa silverware container (usually made of plastic} providegood protection and allow you to organize your drawingtools into groups. Or you can simply collect long, shallowcardboard boxes—the kind that small gifts often come in.

Knife and Sandpaper Pad. The pencil at the right hasbeen shaped to a point with a mechanical pencil sharpener.The other pencil has been shaped to a broader point with aknife and sandpaper. The knife is used to cut away the woodwithout cutting away much of the lead. Then (he pencilpoint is rubbed on the sandpaper to give it a broad, flat tip.Buy a knife with a retractable blade that's safe to carry. Tothe right of the knife you see a sandpaper pad that you canbuy in most art-supply stores; it's like a small book, boundat one end so you can tear off the graphite-coated pages.

Stomps and Cleansing Tissue, To blend charcoal andpush the blended tones into tight corners, you can buystomps of various sizes in any good art-supply store. Astomp is made of tightly rolled paper with a tapered end anda sharp point. Use the tapered part for blending broad areasand the tip for blending smaller areas, A crumpled cleansingtissue can be used to dust off unsatisfactory areas of a draw-ing in natural charcoal. (It's harder, however, to dust off themark of a charcoal pencil.) You can also use the tissue tospread soft tones over large areas.

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7

FORM AND PROPORTION

Egg Shape. Seen from the front, the head is shaped like anegg. Many artists actually begin by drawing an egg shape,as you see here. Drawing a vertical center line helps you toplace the features symmetrically. It also helps if you drawhorizontal guidelines to locate the features on either side ofthe vertical center line.

Head Shape. The tones on the head follow the same se-quence as the tones on the egg. Looking from left to right,you can see four tonal areas that flow smoothly together:light; halftone (or middletone), where the shape begins tocurve away from the light; shadow; and reflected light,where the shadow turns paler. The chin casts a shadow onthe neck.

Egg Shapes. When you draw a side view, visualize thehead as two overlapping eggs; one vertical and one horizon-tal, with both tilting a bit. Once again, looking from left toright, you can see the tonal gradations of light, halftone (ormiddletone), shadow, and reflected light. There's a similargradation on the right side of the cylindrical neck.

Head Shape. Obviously, the forms of the head are morecomplex than the egg shape and cylinder, but the gradationof tones is essentially the same. You can see the light, half-tone, shadow, and reflected light most clearly on the bigshapes of the skull, cheek, and jaw. They also appear inmore subtle form on the eye socket, nose, and neck.

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FORM AND PROPORTION

Egg Shapes. The head turns until it's midway between afront and side view. This is called a three-quarter view. Youstill see two overlapping eggs. The vertical egg is obvious,but you see a bit less of the horizontal egg. The gradation offour tones remains essentially the same.

Head Shape. On the egg and on the head, the light comesfrom the right, and so the gradation of light, halftone,shadow, and reflected light moves from right to left. Youcan see the gradation most clearly on the shadow side of theface. It's also obvious on the chin and jaw. The nose casts ashadow on the upper lip, while the earlobe casts a shadowbehind the jaw.

Egg Shapes. When the head tilts downward—or whenyou're looking at the head from above—you still see the twooverlapping egg shapes, but an important change takesplace in the guidelines. Note how they curve: the horizontalguidelines wrap around the head in parallel rings. Althoughthe alignment of the features may change, the gradation offour tones remains essentially the same.

Head Shape. Looking from left to right on the egg and onthe real head, you can still see the four interlocking tones:light, halftone, shadow, and reflected light, plus the castshadow on the neck. The gradation is most apparent on theforehead, cheek, and jaw. You can also see it on the eyesockets and nose. The light comes from the upper left, andso the nose casts a shadow to the right.

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9

DRAWING THE EYE: FRONT VIEW 10

Step 1. The artist begins to draw the eye by indicating itsbasic contours with a few casual but carefully placed lines.He suggests the complete upper and lower lids, as well asthe eyebrow and the corner of the eye socket at the sideof the nose. At this stage the iris is just a circle, Studythe contours of the inner edges of the lids. Starting from theouter corner, the top lid follows a long, flattened curve andturns down a bit at the inside corner. The lower lid does justthe opposite, starting from the inside corner as a long, flat-tened curve and then turning upward at the outside comer.

Step 2, Pressing harder on the point of his pencil, the artistmoves back over the casual guidelines of Step 1 to refine thecontours. The rather angular lines of Step 1 become rounderand more rhythmic. They eye begins to look more lifelike.The shapes of the lids are more clearly defined. It's par-ticularly important to remember that the upper lid alwaysoverlaps the iris, cutting off part of the circle. The lower lidtouches the iris but doesn't overlap it quite so much.

Step 3. Having drawn the contours more accurately, theartist now begins to block in the tones with broad, spon-taneous strokes. The tones are actually clusters of parallelstrokes, which you can see most clearly in the tone of theiris and the shadow inside the eye socket. The artist sug-gests the dark spot of the pupil, and he carefully draws theshadow that the upper lid casts across the iris and over thewhite of the eye. He indicates the shadows at the corners ofthe lids and on the underside of the lower lid.

Step 4. In the final stage, the artist strengthens his tonesand adds the final details. He darkens the shadowy linesaround the eyelids and deepens the shadow cast over the eyeby the upper lid. He darkens the iris and the pupil, pickingout the highlight on the iris with a quick touch of an eraser.More clusters of parallel lines darken the corner of the eyesocket alongside the nose. Scribbly, erratic lines suggest theeyebrow. And using the sharp point of a pencil, he carefullyretraces the contours of the upper lid and the tear ducts atthe corner of the eye.

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DRAWING THE EYE: THREE-QUARTER VIEW 11

Step 1. When the head turns from a front view to a three-quarter view, the eye turns too, of course, and its shapechanges. If the sitter is looking straight at you, the irismoves to the side, as you see here. Once again, the artistbegins with quick, casual lines. He draws the main contoursof the eyelids, iris, and eyebrow, with a slight suggestion ofthe eye socket along the side of the nose. Have you noticedthe straight, horizontal line that crosses the eye? That's theguideline that the artist has drawn across the egg-shapedhead to locate the eyes.

Step 2. The artist goes over the lines of Step I with darker,more precise lines. The curves of the eyelids are definedmore carefully, the disc shape of the iris is drawn moreprecisely, and the pupil is added. In the three-quarter view,the eye doesn't seem quite as wide as it does in the frontview. But the curving shapes of the lids are essentially thesame. From the outer corner, the top lid begins as a long,flattened curve and then turns steeply downward at the in-side corner. Conversely, the lower lid starts from the insidecomer as a long, flattened curve and then turns sharply up-ward at the outside corner.

Step 3. The artist begins to suggest the distribution of toneswith clusters of parallel strokes. These broad strokes aremade with the side of the pencil lead, rather than with thesharp tip. Notice how the strokes tend to curve around thecontours of the eye sockets. The shadowy edges of the lidsare drawn carefully. Once again, the artist indicates theshadow that's cast across the eye by the upper lid. The pupilis darkened. The eyebrow is darkened slightly, but thestrongest darks are saved for the final step.

Step 4. The artist blackens the pupil, darkens the iris, andstrengthens the shadowy edges of the eyelids. More groupsof parallel strokes—made by the side of the lead—curvearound the eye socket to darken the tones and make itsshape look rounder. On the white of the eye, a touch ofshadow is added at the corner. Long, graceful lines suggestthe hairs of the eyebrow, while short, curving lines suggesteyelashes. An eraser picks out highlights on the pupil.Compare the soft, rounded character of this female eye withthe more angular mate eye on the preceding page.

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Step 3. Moving the side of the pencil lightly over the paperwith parallel strokes, the artist begins to block in the tones.He darkens the eyebrow and indicates the shadow beneaththe brow, just above the bridge of the nose. He adds shad-ows to the edges of the curving eyelids and places a deepshadow in the eye socket, just above the upper lid. Theupper lid casts a distinct strip of shadow over the iris and thewhite of the eye. The artist darkens the iris and the pupil.

Step 4. Still working with the side of the pencil, the artistdarkens the shadows with clusters of broad, parallel strokes.He accentuates the shadows around the eye, making the eyesockets seem deeper. He also darkens the shadowy edges ofthe eyelids and adds a few dark touches to suggest eye-lashes. The iris becomes a darker tone and the pupil be-comes darker still—highlighted with a white dot made bythe tip of a kneaded rubber eraser. Just above the lower lid.a hint of tone makes the white of the eye look rounder.Rhythmic, curving strokes complete the eybrow.

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Step 2. Working with the pencil point, the artist carefullysharpens the lines of the lids, draws the iris more precisely,and adds the pupil. A second line is added to indicate thetop of the lower lid. Now you have an even stronger feelingthat the eyelids are bands of skin that wrap around thesphere of the eye—although the artist has erased most of thelines of the sphere that appear in Step 1. The artist begins tostrengthen the lines of the eybrow, which has a distinct S-curve. Compare the upper and lower lids: the upper lid has asteeper slant than the lower lid, and juts farther forward.

Step 1. The eye is actually a small sphere that rests in thecircular cup of the eye socket. It's a good idea to begin bydrawing the complete sphere, as the artist does here.Around the sphere, he wraps the eyelids, like two curvingbands, and places the iris on the front of the sphere. Theeyebrow curves around the edge of the sphere. If you vi-sualize the eye in this way, it looks rounder and more three-dimensional. Later on, you can erase the lines of the sphere,of course.

12DRAWING THE EYE: SIDE VIEW

DRAWING THE EYE: TILTED VIEW 13

Step 1. When the head tilts downward, the eye tilts down-ward too. As you can observe in this preliminary sketch, thetilted view of the eye shows you more of the upper lid andless of the lower lid. You also see less of the iris and thewhite of the eye because the upper lid seems to come fartherdown. These first sketchy lines define the curves of the eye-lids—wrapping around the ball of the eye—as well as thecorner of the eye socket and the typical S-curve of the eye-brow.

Step 2. The artist draws the contours of the eye and theeyelids carefully over the sketchy guidelines of Step I. Be-cause we're looking down at the eye from above, we see alot of the upper lid, and the shape of the eye itself seemsmore slender than it looks in a front view. The artist sharp-ens the lines of the iris and draws the pupil. He draws thetear duct more precisely. Then he begins to suggest the in-ner contours of the eye socket with groups of curving linesthat follow the rounded shape of the socket. Note how theupper lid overlaps the lower lid at the outer corner.

Step 3. To block in the tones, the artist moves the side ofthe pencil lightly across the paper. Clusters of curving, par-allel strokes suggest the roundness of the eye socket, abovethe eye and in the corner adjacent to the nose. The shadowson the lids are also executed with curving strokes. The iris isdarkened with parallel strokes, and the artist presses harderon the pencil to darken the pupil. Horizontal strokes suggestthe shadow cast by the upper lid across the iris and the whiteof the eye. A deep shadow is placed in the inner corner ofthe eye, Long, curving, rhythmic strokes suggest the eye-brow.

Step 4. To complete the drawing, the artist builds up theshadow around the eye with thick strokes, using the side ofthe pencil lead. He strengthens the deep shadow that's castby the eye socket on the upper lid and then darkens theshadow beneath the lower lid. He darkens the iris and pupil,deepens the shadow that's cast by the upper lid, and addsdelicate touches of tone to the white of the eye. Most of theeye is in shadow because it turns downward, away from thelight. An eraser picks out just a few areas of fight, and thepoint of the pencil adds the details of the lashes and eye-brow.

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DRAWING THE MOUTH: FRONT VIEW 14

Step 1. The artist begins todraw the mouth with straight,simple construction lines.Down the center of the draw-ing, you can see the verticalcenter line that helps him con-struct a symmetrical mouthand chin. The dividing linebetween the lips is one of thehorizontal guidelines that theartist draws across the egg-shaped head. Above this hori-zontal line, the artist drawsfour bask lines for the upperlip and three lines for thelower lip, plus a scribble tosuggest a shadow beneath thelower lip. Note that he alsoindicates the groove that trav-els from the upper lip to thebase of the nose.

Step 2. The upper lip is actu-ally shaped something like apair of wings that meet at thecenter line of the face. Theartist redraws the upper lipwith firmer strokes to indicatethis shape. The lower lip con-sists of a blocky frontal planeand two triangular sideplanes. The artist adds linesto indicate these planes. Healso strengthens the verticalcenter line to suggest theslight crease that runs downthe center of the lower lip.

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Step 3. Turning the pencil tomake broad strokes with theside of the lead, the artist be-gins to block in the tones withgroups of parallel strokes.The upper lip is usually inshadow because it turnsdownward, away from thelight. Between the lips, theartist places a line of deepshadow. And there's a pool ofshadow beneath the lower lip.The light is coming from theleft, so the artist places shad-ows on the side planes at theright—away from the light.For the same reason, he be-gins to indicate a shadow onthe right side of the chin andsuggests a bit of shadow inthe groove above the upperlip.

15DRAWING THE MOUTH: FRONT VIEW

Step 4. Having indicated thepattern of light and shaderoughly in Step 3, the artiststrengthens all these tones inthe final step. He darkens theupper lip, which is just a bitlighter at the left—the lighterside of the face. The lower lipis divided into three tonalareas—halftone at the left,light in the center, andshadow at the right—whichcorrespond to the three planesdrawn in Step 2. The artiststrengthens the dark line be-tween the lips, builds up theshadow beneath the lower lip,strengthens the modeling onthe jaw and chin, and addsmore tone to the grooveabove the upper lip. Noticethe strong touches of shadowat the corners of the mouth.

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DRAWING THE MOUTH: THREE-QUARTER VIEW 16

Step 1. The artist draws thewing shape of the upper lipwith curving lines to suggestthe softness of the femalemouth. He draws the fulllower lip with a single curve.The horizontal line betweenthe lips is the usual horizontalguideline that he draws acrossthe egg shape of the head toindicate the placement of themouth. The head turnsslightly to the left and so doesthe mouth; therefore, the ver-tical center line is alsoslightly to the left, and themouth is no longer symmetri-cal. We see more of its rightside.

Step 2. Going back over thesketchy lines of Step I, theartist draws the shapes of thelips more exactly. Study theintricate contours of the wing-shaped upper lip. Note howthe center of the upper lipdips downward over thelower lip. The artist doesn'tdraw dividing lines for thethree planes of the lower lip,but the outer contour issquared slightly to suggestthose planes. He also refinesthe shape of the jaw and chinwith additional lines.

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DRAWING THE MOUTH: THREE-QUARTER VIEW 17

Step 3. The artist begins todarken the upper lip, which isnormally in shadow, asyou've seen in the precedingdemonstrations. He darkensthe dividing line between thelips, accentuating the shad-ows at the corners of themouth. Just above this darkline, he darkens the shadowyupper lip to emphasize itsroundness. He places a lighttone on the lower lip. whichturns upward and receives thelight, but he darkens theshadow plane at the right.Rough strokes darken thepool of shadow beneath thelower lip. He begins to addtone to the side of the chinand jaw. And he adds a heavyshadow to the groove abovethe upper lip.

Step 4. The artist continuesto darken the shadowy upperlip and strengthens the divid-ing line between the lips. Headds more tone to the cornersof the mouth. Although thelower lip receives more lightthan the upper one. the lipsare darker than the surround-ing skin—so he adds moretone to the lower lip. leavingjust a patch oflight for a high-light. He darkens the shadowplane of the lower lip at theright and strengthens theshadowy underside of the lipto make the shape lookrounder. Finally, he addsmore tone to the chin andjaw, as well as to the grooveabove the upper lip. Comparethe soft, round female mouthin this demonstration with themore angular male mouth inthe preceding demonstration.

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DRAWING THE MOUTH: SIDE VIEW 18

Step 1. Above the horizontal guideline that represents thedividing line between the lips, the artist draws the upper lipwith just a few crisp lines, plus a single line for the curveleading upward to the base of the nose. In the same way, hedraws the lower lip with a few angular lines and then care-fully draws the shape of the chin with curving strokes.Notice the slanted line that touches the tips of the upper andlower lips at the right. This is an important guideline be-cause it indicates the relationship between the lips: the up-per lip normally protrudes farther forward.

Step 2. Working carefully over the sketchy lines of Step I,the artist redefines the shapes of the lips with darker lines.Notice how the upper lip turns down and slightly overlapsthe lower lip. The lower lip recedes slightly and is just a bitthicker than the upper lip. The artist also strengthens thelines of the chin and accentuates the shadowy corner of themouth.

Step 3. The artist adds broad areas of tone with the side ofthe lead. You can see clearly that the upper lip is in shadowbecause it slants downward, away from the light. The lowerlip is paler because it turns upward and receives the light.The upper lip easts just a hint of shadow across the lowerlip; there's also a hint of shadow along the lower edge. Be-neath the lower lip is a concave area that curves away fromthe light and is filled with shadow. The artist adds moreshadow at the corner of the mouth and begins to model thetones of the chin and jaw.

Step 4. The artist darkens the upper lip and accentuates theshadow line between the lips, as well as the dark corner ofthe mouth. He deepens the pool of shadow beneath thelower lip and adds more strokes to model the entire jawarea, which now becomes rounder and more three-dimen-sional. Finally, he darkens the forward edge of the lowerlip. which receives the shadow cast by the overlapping up-per lip. It's interesting to study the pattern of the pencilstrokes, which gradually change direction to follow thecurving forms of the mouth, chin, and jaw.

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DRAWING THE MOUTH: TILTED VIEW 19

Step 1. When the head turns downward—or when we lookat the head from slightly above—we get a different view ofthe mouth. We see somewhat less of the upper lip and moreof the lower lip. (In this drawing, the head is turned slightlyto the left, and so we also see more of the right side of themouth.) As you've seen in previous demonstrations, thepreliminary drawing captures the wing shape of the upperlip and the three planes of the lower lip—all with straight,simple lines.

Step 2. The artist redraws the lips with softer, curving linesand gently erases the more angular guidelines of Step 1.Now you see the protruding center of the upper lip, whichslightly overlaps the lower lip. The corners of the mouthturn slightly upward and the wing shape of the upper lip be-comes more graceful. The artist also strengthens the lines ofthe chin, the jaw, and the groove between the upper lip andthe base of the nose.

Step 3. The artist darkens the upper lip selectively. The up-per lip actually has a kind of zigzag shape that's sometimesin light and sometimes in shadow. This is most apparent atthe center, where the left plane catches the light and theright plane is in shadow; the artist accentuates the shadowplane to make the shape jut forward. He also darkens theline between the lips, adds tone to the lower lip, darkens theshadow plane at the right, and also darkens the underside ofthe lower lip to make the shape look rounder. He begins tomodel the tones on the chin and jaw.

Step 4. As the artist darkens the tones of the lips, it's ob-vious that the light comes from the left, since the rightplanes are in shadow. He darkens the right sides of both lipsand deepens the shadow line between the lips. He also ac-centuates the dark corners of the mouth. The shadowy un-derside of the lower lip is darkened to make the shape lookrounder and fuller. An eraser picks out highlights on therounded lower lip. The artist darkens the shadow area be-neath the lower lip and models the soft curves of the chinand jaw.

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DRAWING THE NOSE: FRONT VIEW 20

Step 1. The preliminary sketch emphfisizes the proportionsof the nose in relation to the eyes. The space between theeyes is usually the width of one eye. The artist draws verti-cal guidelines down from the inner corners of the eyes toindicate the width of the nose—which is about "one eyewide" at the base. These vertical guidelines establish theouter edges of the nostrils. Now study the inner guidelines:the diagonals that connect the brow to the bridge; the verti-cals that define the bridge; and the diagonals that indicatethe tip of the nose. The vertical center line aids symmetry.

Step 2. Over the vertical guidelines of Step 1. the artistdraws curving lines to define the shapes of the nostrils, plusfirm, straight lines to define the tip of the nose more pre-cisely. The artist doesn't draw the nose in isolation butworks on the other features at the same time. He begins todefine the shapes of the eyes more precisely, since the shapeof the nose flows into the eye sockets. He also indicates theshape of the groove leading from the nose to the upper lip.

Step 3. With the side of the lead, the artist blocks in thetones with broad strokes. The light comes from the left, andso the right side of the nose is in shadow. Since the noselocks into the eye sockets, the artist adds tone to the socketsat the same time. There's a particularly dark patch of tone inthe eye socket at the right, just above the bridge of the nose.The nose also casts a shadow downward toward the right,over the upper lip. The artist erases the guidelines of Step 1,adds tone to the underside of the nose, and darkens thenostrils.

Step 4. The artist now sharpens the contours and builds upthe tones. Study the subtle gradation of tone on the shadowside of the nose, as well as the gradations on the tip of thenose and the nostrils. The underside of the nose is inshadow, but there's just enough reflected light within theshadow to define the shapes. Notice how the cast shadowunder the nose is paler as the tone recedes downward. Thereare also deep shadows in the eye sockets on either side ofthe nose, plus a soft patch of shadow just above the bridge,where the brow slants down, away from the light.

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DRAWING THE NOSE: THREE-QUARTER VIEW 21

Step 1. When the head turns to a three-quarter view, thenose no longer looks symmetrical; we see more of one side.In this drawing, the head also tilts slightly upward, and sowe see more of the underside of the nose. The artist startswith the slanted lines of the brow, leading downward alongthe eye sockets to the bridge of the nose. The bridge andside plane arc indicated by vertical lines that lead down tothe base of the nose, which is roughly "one eye wide.1'Curving lines indicate the nostrils and the tip of the nose.The artist draws the eyes at the same time.

Step 2. Following the guidelines of Step 1. the artist refinesthe curved shapes of the nostrils, the tip of the nose, and itsunderside. He also refines the shapes of the eyes and the eyesockets that flow into the sides of the nose.

Step 3. The side of the pencil begins to indicate the shapesof the shadows with rough, scribbly strokes. The lightcomes from the left, and so the right side of the nose is inshadow. So is the underside, which also casts a saintedshadow downward. The artist also begins to model the eyesockets, since their shapes are inseparable from the shape ofthe nose. You already begin to see the distinction betweenhalftone and shadow on the tip and side of the nose.

Step 4. The artist continues to build up the tones on theshadow side of the nose and around its tip. The wings of thenostrils are clearly defined by darker strokes, as well as bytouches of reflected light. Notice that the rounded tip of thenose is modeled as a separate form, very much like a littleball. The artist darkens the eye sockets on either side of thenose to make the bridge stand out more distinctly. He'serased the guidelines of Step 1 and continues to work on thesurrounding features as he works on the nose.

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DRAWING THE NOSE: SIDE VIEW 22

Step 1. Drawing the nose in profile, the artist carefully fol-lows the horizontal guidelines that locate the eye and thebase of the nose. He draws the brow and the eye at the sametime to establish an accurate relationship between the fea-tures. The eye is just above the bridge of the nose and alignswith the concave curve beneath the brow. The back end ofthe nostril wing lines up roughly with the forward edge ofthe upper eyelid. The nose itself is drawn with just a fewstraight lines and a few curves.

Step 2. The artist draws the contours more precisely overthe guidelines of Step 1—and then erases most of them.Now there's a distinct S-curve from the bridge of the nosedown to the tip. The underside of the nose is clearly definedas a separate plane. The curving shape of the nostril wing ismore carefully drawn. The artist also refines the curve of thebrow and continues to work on the eye as he draws the nose,A few strokes divide the tip of the nose and the nostril intoseparate shapes—this division will become more importantwhen tone is added in Steps 3 and 4.

Step 3. The artist begins to block in the tones with broadstrokes, using the side of the pencil lead. The light comesfrom the left, and so the front plane of the nose is in thelight, while the side plane is in shadow. The underside ofthe nose and the back of the nostril are also in shadow,while the front plane of the nostril catches the light. Noticethat a patch of shadow now divides the lip of the nose fromthe nostril. There's also a patch of deep shadow in the eyesocket.

Step 4. As the artist strengthens his dark tones, you beginto see a clear distinction between light, halftone, andshadow on the side of the nose and on its underside. Theartist deepens the shadow on the eye socket and darkens thenostril. With the sharp point of the pencil, he draws the con-tours of the brow, nose, and upper lip more exactly. Noticea hint of shadow where the brow turns downward, awayfrom the light. And observe how the slanted strokes of thepencil accentuate the three-dimensional character of theforms.

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DRAWING THE NOSE: TILTED VIEW 23

Step 1. In this view of the nose, the head tilts slightlydownward, and so we see very little of the underside of thenose. The head is also turned slightly to the left, and so wesee more of the right side and very little of the left. In thispreliminary sketch, the artist visualizes the tip of the nose asa kind of diamond shape. The undersides of the nostrils looklike curves. The outer edges of the nostril wings still alignwith the inside corners of the eyes.

Step 2, The artist continues to define the rounded shapes ofthe nostrils more precisely. He sees very little of the nostrilon the left and a great deal of the one on the right. The tip ofthe nose seems to hang downward, since we're looking at itfrom slightly above. The artist redraws the bridge of thenose, which widens slightly just above the eyes. He workson the eyes at the same time that he draws the nose. Becausethe head and eyes turn downward, we see a great deal of theupper eyelids.

Step 3. The light comes from the right, and so the artistbuilds up the tones on the left sides of the forms. The leftside of the nose is in shadow. So is the underside, whichcasts a slanted shadow downward toward the upper lip. Theartist carefully models the inner curves of the eye sockets,which define the top of the nose. In particular, notice thedark curve of the eye soeket at the left, which swingsaround the bridge of the nose.

Step 4. The artist continues to darken the inner curves ofthe eye sockets; these tones make the bridge of the noseseem more three-dimensional. He darkens the tone on theshadow side of the nose; now you see a clear gradation oflight, halftone, and shadow. He models the tip of the noseas if it's a little ball. He models the nostril at the right as aseparate shape, surrounded by tone. The pencil point sharp-ens the contours of the underside of the nose. At the right ofthe lighted nostril wing, a hint of tone suggests the inneredge of the cheek.

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DRAWING THE EAR: SIDE VIEW 24

Step 1. The artist begins by drawing a guideline diagonallyupward from the jaw. The ear attaches to this line. He drawsthe top of the ear with two angular lines and then movesdownward to draw the back of the car with a big curve andthe lobe with a smaller curve. Carefully observing the innerdetail of the ear, he draws the shapes with short, curvedstrokes.

Step 2. Over the sketchy lines of Step 1. the artist draws ihccontours of the ear with darker, more precise lines. A darkinner line defines the sinuous shape of the rim, which windsaround to the deep "bowl" at the center of the ear, The artistdraws the inner shape more exactly.

Step 3. The artist adds the pools of shadow within the ear,which is darkest just inside the rim. He moves around theouter edge of the ear and around the lobe, adding touches ofshadow thai make the shape look three-dimensional. Hesuggests the hair surrounding the ear and begins to modelthe cheek and jaw. Notice the tiny poo] of shadow where thelobe attaches to the jaw.

Step 4. The pools of shadow within the ear are darkenedwith heavy strokes. Small parallel strokes strengthen thetones around the edge of the ear; then an eraser brightens thelighted areas. The ear casts a shadow downward on the backof the neck. The artist completes the surrounding hair, mak-ing the rounded forms of the car stand out more boldly.

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DRAWING THE EAR: FRONT VIEW

Step 1. When the sitter faces you, you see much less of theear. The shape grows slender. The artist begins by drawingthe slanted line of the jaw and cheek, to which the ear at-taches, He draws the outer shape of the ear with just a fewstraight lines and curves, and then draws the inner shapewith shorter lines. He indicates the hair that surrounds theear.

Step 2. Step 1 is a highly simplified version of the ear, ofcourse. Now the artist goes back over these sketchy lines todefine the shapes more precisely. He draws the intricatecurves and angles over the guidelines—which he thenerases.

Step 3. With the side of the pencil, the artist blocks in a bigpool of shadow at the center of the ear, plus the slendershadow that starts at the top and travels down along the in-side of the rim. He begins to model the lobe and the portionof the ear that attaches to the side of the head. The tone ofthe hair is blocked in to make the lighted edge of the earstand out.

Step 4. The side of the pencil deepens the inner tones of theear. Then an eraser lightens the lower half of the big pool ofshadow. A few additional touches of tone appear on the rimand lobe of the ear. The tone of the hair is carried carefullyaround the ear and helps to define its shape. In this view, wesee a minimum of detail; the ear is drawn very simply.

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DRAWING THE HEAD: FRONT VIEW 26

Step 1. Now, to show you how to put together everythingyou've learned so far, the artist draws a front view of a com-plete head. He starts out with the traditional egg shape andvisualizes the neck as a slightly slanted cylinder. For sym-metry, he draws a vertical guideline down the center of theegg. Then he adds horizontal guidelines for the brow, eyes.

nose, and mouth. He divides the eye line into five differentparts: two of these parts will become eyes, of course, butthe space between them is also the width of one eye—and soare the spaces on either side of the eyes. The base of thenose is also "one eye wide." The mouth is about "two eyeswide."

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Step 2. The first simple sketch of the features goes directlyover the guidelines of Step 1. The artist squares up the jawjust a bit, adds the ears—which align with the nose andeyes—and suggests the shape of the hair, which extendsbeyond the edges of the egg. He draws the lines of the eye-

lids and suggests the shape of the iris. He quickly sketchesthe bridge of the nose, the shapes of the nostrils, and the tip.He draws the characteristic wing shape of the upper lip andthe fuller curve of the lower lip. The sitter's collar curvesaround the cylinder of the neck.

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Step 3. Switching from the point of the pencil to the side ofthe lead, the artist begins to darken his tones with broad par-allel strokes. The light comes from the left, and so most ofthe tones are on the right sides of the shapes. He carries thetone downward over the side of .the forehead, cheek, jaw,and chin, adding the shadow on the neck. He adds the first

suggestion of tone to each eye socket, iris, and pupil, andthen moves downward to add broad, simple tones to thenose and lips. As usual, the upper lip is darker than thelower, and there's a shadow beneath the lower lip. Touchesof tone appear on the ears. The hair is visualized as a big,simple mass, lighter on one side than on the other.

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Step 4. The artist completes the drawing by darkening thetones with the side of the pencil and sharpening contoursand details with the tips. He builds up the modeling on theshadow side of the face, where you can now see a distinctgradation of light, halftone, shadow, and reflected light. Onthe lighted side of the face, he adds touches of tone wherethe cheek and jaw turn away from the light. He darkens the

eye sockets, the underside of the nose and nostrils, the lips,the tones within the ears, and the shadow beneath the chin.With the point of the pencil, he sharpens the contours of theears, emphasizes the detail of the eyes and eyebrows, drawsthe nostrils more precisely, and suggests the detail of thecollar. He completes the hair with broad strokes made withthe side of the lead.

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DRAWING THE HEAD: THREE-QUARTER VIEW 30

Step 1. The procedure is essentially the same in a three-quarter view. But now the guidelines are a vertical eggoverlapped by a horizontal egg. The center line moves asthe head turns to the side. The horizontal guidelines are stillin the same places, of course. Across the eye line, the artist

locates the eyes with tiny touches of the pencil point. Mov-ing down to the line at the base of the nose, he locates theouter edges of the nostrils in the same way. The neck is aslightly slanted cylinder once again. Notice that the back ofthe head protrudes well beyond the line of the neck.

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Step 2. The artist reshapes the contours of the head overthe original guidelines, adding the angular details of thebrow, cheek, chin, and jaw. The features appear in theircorrect places on the horizontal guidelines. Although thehead is turned to a three-quarter view, the cur still alignsroughly with the eyebrow and nose. Notice how the tip of

the nose and (he nostrils are visualized us distinct forms.The eyelids arc clearly drawn, as are the dark patches withinthe eyes. The upper lip has the distinctive wing shape, whilethe lower lip looks blocky and masculine. The hair startsjust below the crown and extends beyond the guidelines ofthe upper egg shapes.

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Step 3. The artist blocks in the tones with rough strokes.First her places the biggest tonal shapes on the side of thebrow, cheek, jaw, and chin. Then he moves to the features,adding tone to the eye sockets, eyelids, nose, and lips. Thenose casts a slanted shadow downward toward the right. Asusual, the upper lip is in shadow, the lower tip catches thelight, and there's a deep shadow beneath the lower lip.

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DRAWING THE HEAD: THREE-QUARTER VIEW


Step 4. The artist finishes the drawing by building up thedarks throughout the face and features, and so now you cansee the lights, halftones, shadow, and reflected lightdistinctly. The point of the pencil sharpens the lines andadds the details. Is this four-step process becoming famil-iar? Good!

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PENCIL DRAWING 34

Slender Strokes. Working with the sharp point of thepencil, you can build up the tones of your drawing withgroups of slender parallel strokes. The halftones andreflected lights are clusters of fairly pale strokes; the artisthas applied only moderate pressure to the pencil. The darkershadows consist of heavier strokes; the artist has pressedharder on the pencil. The strokes are closer together in theshadow areas, while there are more spaces between thestrokes in the halftones and reflected lights. Observe howthe strokes change direction to suggest the curve of thecheck.

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Broad Strokes- Here's the same subject executed withmuch broader strokes. The artist holds his pencil at an angleso the side of the lead touches the paper. He presses harderon the pencil to make the darker strokes, which are closertogether than the paler strokes. The pencil moves diagonally(with a slight curve) to suggest the roundness of the cheek.Then the pencil moves vertically downward to suggest thesquarish shape of the jaw. And the strokes become slantedagain as the pencil follows the angle of the jaw down to thechin.

Strokes on Charcoal Paper. Charcoal paper isn't justfor charcoal drawing. Its subtle, ribbed surface is equallygood for pencil drawing, The delicate tooth (as it's called)of the sheet combines with the pencil strokes to produce alively texture. In this close-up of a woman's portrait, thethick-and-thin pencil strokes in the hair are softened by thetextured surface of the paper: tiny flecks of bare paper popthrough even the darkest tones, making the strokes vibratewith a kind of inner light. These tiny flecks of bare paperlend softness and transparency to the tones around the eyes-

Strokes on Rough Paper It's worthwhile to try a vari-ety of textured papers, many of which are rougher and moreirregular than charcoal paper. In this portrait of the samewoman you see on the left, the artist has used a thick stickof graphite in a plastic holder and drawn on extremely roughpaper. The thickness of the drawing tool and the irregularsurface of the drawing paper combine to make the strokeslook bold and ragged. The marks of the graphite stick lookgranular, with big flecks of bare paper showing through.The strokes are less precise than those on the charcoal pa-per, but more dynamic.

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PENCIL DRAWING 35

Modeling with Strokes. This woman's face is modeledwith delicate strokes that travel carefully over the forms.For example, there are two patches of tone above the righteye socket; each consists of slanted strokes that are carefullyangled to express the roundness of the form. Now followthe route of the strokes that model the cheek on the shadowside of the face. In the pale halftone area under the eye, thelines are delicate diagonals. As the cheek turns away fromthe light, the strokes curve and darken. The entire face isrendered with carefully planned groups of strokes.

Modeling by Blending. Another way to render tone is byblending the strokes of the pencil (or the graphite stick) withthe tip of your finger or a paper stomp. Look carefully atthis drawing of the same sitter and you'll see that the artisthas started with broad, rather casual strokes—not as neat orcareful as the ones in the drawing at your left—andsmudged them to create soft, velvety tones. The blendingdoesn't obliterate the strokes completely, but they meltaway into smoky areas that look more like patches of paint.The softer grades of pencil are easiest to blend.

Continuous Tone on Charcoal Paper. Still anotherway to build up tone on charcoal paper is to rub the side ofthe lead gently back and forth as if you were sharpening thelead on a piece of sandpaper. The tooth of the paper gradu-ally shaves away microscopic granules of graphite, whichslowly pile up to create the tones of the drawing. The moreyou rub—and the harder—the darker the tones get. For thedelicate tones of the eyes, the artist passes his pencil lightlyover the paper once or twice. To create the darker tones ofthe eyebrows and hair, the artist presses harder and moveshis pencil back and forth several times.

Continuous Tone on Rough Paper. You can do thesame thing on rough paper, which shaves away the granulesof graphite more rapidly—like rough sandpaper—andbuilds up more ragged, irregular tones. Once again, the art-ist presses harder and moves his pencil back and forth sev-eral times for the dark tones, while he just skims the surfaceof the paper once or twice for the paler tones. He workswith a thick, soft pencil—or a graphite stick in a holder.

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DEMONSTRATION 1. BLOND WOMAN 36

Step 1. For your first pencil portrait, see whatyou can do with a combination of slender linesand broad strokes on an ordinary piece of draw-ing paper. Use the sharp point of the pencil todraw the contours with slender lines. Then usethe side of the pencil to build up the tones withstrokes of various thicknesses. The artist beginsthis demonstration by drawing the usual eggshape of the head. Within the egg shape, hedraws a vertical center line and four horizontallines to help him locate the features. Over theseguidelines, he draws the eyebrows, eyes, nose,and mouth. The neck is a .slightly slanted cylin-der around which he draws the curved lines ofthe collar with swift strokes. A few more linesdefine the curving contours of the hair, whichextends above the egg shape and beyond it oneither side. At this stage, the artist works en-tirely with a sharpened HB pencil.

Step 2. The artist switches to a 2B pencil andholds it so that the side of the lead strikes thepaper and makes broad strokes. Moving swiftlyover the paper, the artist blocks in the majorareas of tone with scribbty parallel strokes. Thelight comes from the right, and so the artist in-dicates areas of lone on the left side of thebrow, cheek, jaw, and neck. He also places alone on the left side of the nose and suggests thedarkness of the eyes and lips. He models thehair as just a few big shapes, blocking in bigtonal areas and paying no attention to individualstrands or curls. Finally, he scribbles in a bandof shadow along the underside of the collar anda triangle of tone inside the collar. In this step,the artist's purpose is simply to divide the por-trait into zones of light and shadow. So far,there's no gradation of tone—no distinction be-tween halftone, shadow, and reflected light.

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Step 3. Still working with the side of the 2Bpencil, the artist begins (o darken his tones se-lectively. He strengthens the shadows on thebrow and cheek; around the eyes. nose, and-mouth; and on the neck. Now, as usual, the up-per lip is in shadow and there's a hint of shadowbeneath the lower lip. The tip of the nose casts asmall shadow downward toward the corner ofthe mouth. The artist also darkens some of thetones on the hair and strengthens the tones ofthe collar. At this point, the artist starts to de-velop gradations within the tones, and so youbegin to see areas of light, halftone, shadow,and reflected light. For example, notice the paletone at the edge of the jaw, where the shadowgets lighter. The artist still pays very little atten-tion to details, although he docs sharpen thecorners of the eyelids, nostrils, and mouth.

Step 4. Having established the broad distribu-tions of tones in steps 2 and .1. the artist beginsto focus his attention on the features. Workingwith the 2B pencil, he darkens the eyebrowsand the eyes, sharpening the lines of the eyelidswith the point of the pencil. Moving downwardfrom the eyes, he strengthens the shadow on theside of the nose and the tones around the tip ofthe nose. He darkens the upper lip and theshadow beneath the lower lip. sharpening theline between the lips. He uses an eraser to pickout a small strip of bare paper to suggest theteeth and the lighted patch at the center of thelower lip. He draws the darkened center of theear and shapes the contour of the ear more pre-cisely. With the point of the pencil, ho sharpensthe edge of the face at the right and clears awayexcess lines with an eraser. He draws the con-tours of the hair more distinctly—particularlywhere the hair overlaps the brow-—and bright-ens the top of the hair by erasing a whole clusterof lines that existed in Step 3. And he builds upthe shadows on the collar and shoulder.

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Step 5- The artist continues to sharpen detailsand refine tones. With the tip of the pencil, hedraws the eyebrows and eyelids more distinctly,adding the pupils and a suggestion of lashes,With clusters of short, slender strokes, hebuilds up ihc tones in the eye sockets and alongthe side of the nose, sharpening the contours ofthe nose and darkening the nostrils. He definesthe shape of the lips more clearly and darkensthem with short, slender, curving strokes. Withthe same type of strokes, he goes over the shad-ows on the side of the face to make the grada-tions more distinct; darkens the tone along thechin; and strengthens the shadow on the neck.It's interesting to see how the character of thepencil strokes has changed. In Steps 2, 3, and4, the artist worked with broad strokes. Now, inStep 5, he goes back over these broad strokeswith more delicate, slender touches to refmc thetones.

Step 6. At this point, the artist concentratesmainly on detail, He continues to sharpen anddarken ihe contours of the eyes, strengtheningthe irises and pupils, picking out tiny highlightswith a touch of a pointed eraser, and suggestingmore lashes. The few additional strokes suggestindividual hairs within the eyebrows. Travelingdown the side of the nose, ho darkens theshadow with delicate strokes and then strength-ens the tones around the tip of the nose, wherethe nostrils and the cast shadow are even moredistinct. He darkens the lips and sharpens thecontours, paying particular attention to theslender strips of darkness between the lips.With slim, curving strokes, he carries the half-tone of the jaw farther upward toward thecheek. Switching back to the sharply pointedHB pencil, he goes over the hair to suggest indi-vidual strands with crisp strokes.

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Step 7. The side of the 2B pencil deepens the tones withbroad, bold strokes. Clusters of broad strokes move downover the hair to darken the shadow; the strokes are distinctenough to suggest the texture of the hair. The pencil pointdarkens the contours of the eyes, the tones on the side of thenose, and the tones of the lips; then it picks out more hairswithin the eyebrows and more eyelashes. The pupils growdarker, as do the shadows beneath the upper lids. Finally, akneaded rubber eraser cleans the lighted areas.

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DEMONSTRATION 2. BROWN-HAIRED MAN 40

Step 1. Now try drawing a pencil portrait thatconsists mainly of broad, bold strokes. Use athick, soft pencil or a thick, soft stick of graph-ite in a holder. In this first step, the artist beginsby drawing the side view of the head with theusual overlapping egg shapes, one vertical andone horizontal. Just two lines define the neck asa slanted cylinder, Horizontal guidelines locatethe features. The artist works with the sharp-ened tip of the thick lead.

Step 2. Continuing to work with the point ofthe thick lead, the artist draws the contours ofthe face over the guidelines of Step I. He beginsby drawing the prolile; the brow. nose. lips, andchin. Then he steps inside the profile to placethe eyebrow, eye, nostril wing, lips, ear, andcorner of the jaw. Just two lines suggest theAdam's apple on the front of the neck. The pen-cil sweeps around the lop and back of the hori-zontal egg to indicate the shape of the hair.Notice how the ear aligns with the eye andnose, while the sharp corner of the jaw alignswith the mouth.

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Step 3. Moving more carefully over the linesof Step 2, the artist refines the contours with thetip of the pencil. The sitter has an angular, bonyface, which the artist records faithfully. Hedraws the bulge of the forehead, the sharpbrow, the precise S-curve of the nose, the crispdetail of the lips, and the squarish chin. Movinginside the outer edge of the profile, the artistdraws the eyebrow, eye, nostril, mouth, and curwith great care. Just a few lines indicate thesideburn and the dividing line between skin andhair on the side of the forehead. Note the inter-nal detail of the ear.

Step 4. With a pink rubber eraser, the artist re-moves most of the guidelines that appeared inSteps 1,2, and 3. Now he can see the lines ofthe profile and features more clearly and beginto block in the tone. Turning the thick pencil onits side, the artist begins to render the tones sur-rounding the eyes and nose, the cast shadow be-neath the nose, the dark tone of the upper lip.and the pool of shadow beneath the lower lip.Broad, free strokes fill the underside of the jawwith shadow, indicating the interlockingpatches of shadow that move from the under-side of the cheek down to the jaw. Patches ofshadow are placed on the hair, within the ear.beneath the ear, and at (he back of the neck. Allthe tones are still quite pale, but the purpose ofthis fourih step is simply to establish the majorareas of light and shade.

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Step 5. The artist begins to build up the grada-tions within the tones. He darkens the eyebrowand the tones within the eye socket, then movesdownward to build up the tones of the nose andlips. He sharpens the nostril and the shadow be-neath the nose, and then he strengthens theshadow of the upper lip. He also darkens thetones within and around the ear. Focusing onthe larger areas of the face, he strengthens theshadows on the cheek, jaw, neck, and hair. Thetip of the pencil defines the contours of the earmore precisely and draws the squarish shape ofthe sideburn.

Step 6. Gradually, the strokes of the side of thethick pencil become more distinct as the artistcontinues to build up the tones. Observe theshort, decisive strokes (hat model the eye sock-ets, the side of the nose, the corner of themouth, and the lone that travels downward fromthe cheek to the jaw. The artist darkens the un-derside of the jaw with broad, distinct strokesthat accentuate the squarish, bony shape. Thehair is darkened with thick strokes that suggesttexture and detail. With the sharp tip of the pen-cil, the artist begins to emphasize the features.He darkens the eyebrow and sharpens the linesof the eyelids. He adds crisp touches to definethe contours of the nostril, lips, and car moreprecisely. Notice the tiny accents of darknesswithin the nostril, at the corner of the mouth,between (he lips, and within the rim of the car.

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Step 7. The pencil moves over the face, adding clusters ofparallel strokes that enrich the tones of the brow, cheek,jaw, and neck. More strokes darken and model the eyesocket, nose, lips, and ear. The sharpened point of the pen-cil delicately retraces the contour of the profile and sharpens

the eyelids, nostril, lips, and ear. The side of the pencildarkens the hair with thick strokes and adds a hint of tone onthe bare paper along the edge of the brow—accentuating thelight on the sitter's bony forehead.

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DEMONSTRATION 3. BLACK MAN 44

Step 1, The rich skin tones of a black sitter willgive you an opportunity to try a pencil-drawingtechnique that combines strokes with blending.For this technique, a sheet of charcoal paper isparticularly suitable, since the delicately ribbedsurface softens the strokes and also lends itselfbeautifully to blended tones executed with a fin-gertip or a stomp. The artist begins his demon-stration with the standard egg shape divided by avertical center line, plus horizontal lines for theeyes, nose, and mouth. Notice that there's justone horizontal line for the eyes, above which theartist will place the eyebrows. The lowest hori-zontal line locates the bottom edge of the lowerlip. which is halfway between the nose and chin.The artist visualizes the neck as a slightly tiltedcylinder. Notice that he doesn't hesitate to goover these guidelines several times until he getsthe shape exactly right. Because this demonstra-tion requires so much blending, the artist selectsa soft, thick 4B pencil.

Step 2. Working with the sharpened tip of thepencil, the artist locates the eyes on the horizon-tal guideline that crosses the midpoint of thehead, and then he places the brows above thisline. On either side of the vertical center line,he establishes the outer contours of the nose,and then he moves down to locate the tip of thenose and the nostrils on the next horizontalguideline. He places the ears between theguidelines of the eyes and nose. On the lowesthorizontal guideline, he makes a dark stroke toindicate the deep valley beneath the lower lip.Then he places the dividing line of the lipsroughly one-third of the way down from thenose to the chin. He squares up the corners ofthe jaw, indicates the curves of the cheeks, andswings the line of the collar around the cylindri-cal shape of the neck. Moving outward from thetop and sides of the egg, the artist indicates theshape of the hair,

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Step 3. With the point of the thick pencil, theartist now defines the shapes of the head and fea-tures more exactly. He redraws the contours ofthe cheeks, jaw, chin, and neck directly over theoriginal guidelines of Steps 1 and 2. The pencilpoint carefully traces the hairline. Then the artistfocuses on the features: he sharpens the contoursof the eyebrows and draws the upper and lowerlids; defines the shapes of the nostrils and the tipof the nose; constructs the planes of the lips; andemphasizes small, significant details such as thecorners of the eyes, the corners of the lips, andthe cleft in the chin. Finally, he draws the irregu-lar curves of the collar.

Step 4. Turning the thick pencil on its side, theartist begins to block in the tones with broadstrokes. The light comes from the left, placingmost of the head in shadow. This head is an ex-ample of what artists call rim lighting. There's astrip (or rim) of light along one edge of the face,neck. nose, and upper lip, but the rest of theface doesn't receive direct light. There's a darkedge where the light and shadow planes meet;the artist accentuates this by pressing his pencilharder at the edges of the lighted areas on theforehead, cheek, jaw, neck, and nose. He cov-ers the shadowy areas of the face with broadhorizontal strokes and then emphasizes thestrong darks within the shadow areas: thebrows, eye sockets, and eyes; the bridge of thenose and the nostrils; the upper lip and the darktones beneath the lower lip; the chin; and theshadow beneath the neck. The artist also beginsto darken the hair and the shadow side of thecollar. By the end of this step, there's a cleardistinction between the light and shadow areas.

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Step 5. The artist begins to deepen the tones bymoving the flat side of the pencil back and forthover the face. The broad strokes are most appar-ent in the forehead and cheek, where you oftensee big gaps between the strokes—althoughthese gaps will disappear when the artist beginsto blend the tones. He strengthens the darkareas where the light and shadow planes meeton the side of the face, nose, and upper lip. Hedarkens the hair, ihe shadow on the neck, andthe shadow side of the collar. Then he movesinside the face to strengthen the contours and todarken the tones of the eyebrows, eyes, nose,and lips. With the point of the pencil, he em-phasizes the dark edges of the eyelids, nostrils,and lips.

Step 6. Pressing still harder and moving theside of the pencil hack and forth over the tex-tured paper, the artist strengthens all the darkswithin the shadow planes of the face. Hedarkens the tones within the eye sockets, alongthe bridge of the nose, beneath the nose andcheeks, within the lips, around the chin, and onihe neck. With short, curving, scribbly strokes,he darkens the lone of the hair to suggest itscurly texture. And with the tip of the pencil hesharpens all the features, indicating such detailsas the pupils of the eyes, the shadow linesaround the nostrils, and the dark line betweenthe lips.

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Step 7. The artist moves over the shadow areas with a fin-gertip, blending the strokes into smooth, glowing tones.The blending is done selectively: the artist concentratesmainly on the forehead, cheeks, nose, upper lip, and chin.A kneaded rubber eraser brightens the lighted areas andpicks out highlights on the nose and cheek. The pencil

strengthens the darks of the eye sockets and lids, the lips,the undersides of the cheeks, and the sides of the jaws. Thetip of the pencil accentuates the contours of the eyelids,irises, and pupils: the nostrils: and the dark dividing line be-tween the lips.

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DEMONSTRATION 4. DARK-HAIRED WOMAN 48

Step 1. Having discovered how easy it is toblend graphite on the hard surface of a sheet oftextured paper, you know that a pencil drawingcan actually begin to look like a "painting" inblack and white. Now you might like to try apencil portrait in which nearly all the tones aresoftly blended, so that the strokes of the pencilvirtually disappear. For this drawing, the righttool is a thick, soft pencil—or perhaps a stick ofgraphite in a holder—that might be 4B, 5B, oreven 6B. The artist chooses a 5B graphite leadin ti plastic holder and works on a sheet of veryrough paper with a much more pronouncedtooth than the charcoal paper used in the pre-ceding demonstration. He begins by drawingthe usual compound egg shape and a tilted cyl-inder for the neck. The head is turned to a three-quarter view, and so the vertical center line isactually off center. Horizontal guidelines locatethe features: ihe artist divides these lines withtiny touches to locate the eyes and the cornersof the nose and mouth.

Step 2. The artist draws the outer contours ofthe face over the egg shape, capturing thecurves of the checks, jaw, and chin. Swift,curving lines capture the sweep of the hairaround the head and over the forehead. Hedraws the first few lines of the features over theguidelines of Step 1: the curves of the eyebrowsand the upper lids: the side and underside of thenose; and the upper and lower lips. The one vis-ible car is aligned with the eye and nose. As youcan see, the roughness of the paper breaks upthe pencil stroke and produces a ragged line.

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Step 3. The artist completes his preliminaryline drawing of the outer contours of the headand the shapes of the features. He strengthensthe lines of the jaw and the chin. He draws thecar more precisely and adds the inner contoursof the eyes, with a hint of darkness on the irises.He traces the bridge of the nose and constructsthe tip of the nose and the nostril wings. He in-dicates the groove from the base of the nose tothe upper lip. As he defines the lips, he darkensthe corners of the mouth and indicates the con-cavity beneath the lower lip with a dark scrib-ble. The outline of the hair is strengthened withquick, casual lines.

Step 4. Now the artist turns the thick lead onits side and moves it swiftly back and forth overthe rough surface of the paper to indicate the bigtonal areas. The paper is so rough that you canhardly see the individual strokes—the texture ofthe paper dominates the tones. The lines ofSteps 1,2, and 3 rapidly disappear under theragged masses of tone. For the paler tones, theartist moves the drawing tool lightly over thepaper, pressing harder and piling up additionalstrokes for the darker areas—such as the eyesockets, the checks, the shadow cast by thenose, and the hair. Most of the original lineshave disappeared under the tones. The artisterases the others. The main purpose of Step 4 isto establish a clear distinction between thelights (which are just bare paper), the darks,and the middletones (or halftones).

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Step 5. The artist begins to blend the tones of(he face with a fingertip and with a stomp. Heuses his finger to blend the broad tonal areas onthe forehead, check, jaw, and neck, Then hepicks up the pointed stomp to get into tighterspots like the eyes, the side and bottom of thenose. the lips, and the chin. The pencil darkensthe eyes and lips a bit more—then the strokesarc blended with the stomp once again. The art-ist softens the right edge of the hair with a fewtouches of a fingertip.

Step 6. At this stage, the artist alternates be-tween working with the pencil and the stomp.He uses the pencil to define the eyebrows: todarken the eyes and the underside of the nose;and to strengthen the tones of the lips. Then heblends these tones with the sharp lip of thestomp. The side of the pencil scribbles broadstrokes over the hair; then these strokes areblended with a fingertip. The sharp point of thepencil heightens the darks within the eyes, ac-centuates the nostrils, and sharpens the cornersof the mouth. A few deft touches of the kneadedrubber eraser pick out reflected lights within theshadows on the cheek, jaw. neck, and ear—notice how the edges of these shapes becomeslightly lighter. The fingertip carries some tonedownward to the pit of the neck, over oneshoulder, and beneath the collar.

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Step 7. The artist presses a fingertip against the sandpaperpad to pick up accumulated graphite dust, which he care-fully spreads over the shadowy areas of the face and hair.The tones of the drawing become richer and deeper. Thesharp tip of the pencil adds the details of the eyelids, irises.

and pupils; draws the nostrils more exactly; strengthens thecontours of the lips; and suggests individual strands of hair.Touches of the kneaded rubber eraser brighten the lightedareas of the face and pick out streaks of light in the hair.

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CHALK DRAWING 52

Slender Strokes. A hard stick of chalk can be sharpenedto a surprisingly fine tip. So can chalk in pencil form. Witha sharpened stick or pencil, you can build up the tones of aportrait with slender strokes like those you see in this close-up. The precise strokes of the drawing tool follow the curveof the hair. The artist presses harder on the chalk and placesthe strokes closer together in the darker areas. The tones ofthe cheek and eyelid are rendered with clusters of short,curving parallel strokes. The sharp point of the drawing toolpicks out the precise details of the eyes.

Broad Strokes. With the blunt end of the stick of chalk,you can draw the same subject with broad strokes. Thesquare tip of the stick is used to make the thick, curvingstrokes that render the sitter's hair, as well as the clusters ofshort parallel strokes that model the eye socket, brow, andcheek. To render the more precise detail of the eyes, the art-ist simply turns the chalk so that the sharp corner of the rect-angular stick touches the paper. This sharp corner can drawsurprisingly precise lines, like those you see in the eyelids,irises, and pupils.

Strokes on Charcoal Paper. The ribbed surface of char-coal paper is excellent for chalk drawing, whether you'reworking with chalk in stick or pencil form. The charcoal pa-per softens the stroke and lends its own subtle texture to thedrawing. Tiny flecks of bare paper show through the strokesand give the portrait a special kind of luminosity which youcan't achieve on any other kind of paper. You can workwith broad strokes like those you see on the cheeks. On theother hand, the paper is just smooth enough to lend itself toprecise detail like the slender strokes of the features.

Strokes on Rough Paper. There are much rougher pa-pers than charcoal paper, of course, and it's worthwhile totry these surfaces, A rough sheet is best for bold, broadstrokes, made with the squarish end of the chalk. Noticehow free and vital the strokes look on the checks and jaw.On the other hand, a reasonable amount of precision is pos-sible on rough papers: the eyes arc rendered with fairly pre-cise, slender strokes, although these strokes are distinctlyrougher than those with which the eyes are rendered on thecharcoal paper at the left.

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CHALK DRAWING 53

•

Modeling with Strokes. Working with a sharpened stickof chalk or with chalk in pencil form, you can build three-dimensional form by layering stroke over stroke. On theside of the face, the artist gradually lays one stroke over an-other, piling up strokes more thickly in the darker areas.The strokes curve slightly lo suggest the roundness of theface. The lips and nose are also built up stroke over stroke.The network of strokes is dense in the dark areas, such asthe shadow at the side of the nose, while the strokes arelower and farther apart in the paler tones, such as the deli-cate gray beneath the lower lip.

Modeling by Blending. A different way to create astrong sense of three-dimensional form is to cover the tonalareas with free, casual strokes and then blend them with afingertip or a paper stomp. The strokes don't have to be pre-cise because they disappear as you blend them. The blend-ing action converts the strokes to rich, smoky tones likethose on the side of the sitter's face. If you blend somestrokes, add darks with the chalk, and brighten the lightedareas with the kneaded rubber eraser, you can produce thestrong contrast of light and shade that you see on the mouthand nose.

Continuous Tone on Charcoal Paper. Charcoal pa-per—like all strongly textured paper—has distinct peaksand valleys. As the chalk moves, it tends lo strike the peaksand skip over the valleys. The peaks gradually shave awaygranules of chalk each time you make another stroke—andthe tones become darker with successive strokes. Thus, youcan build up soft, luminous tones by gently moving thechalk back and forth over the paper, pressing slightly harderand building up more strokes for the darks. Work slowly,and let the tones emerge gradually, and they'll have aunique inner glow.

Continuous Tone on Rough Paper. You can try thesame technique on any paper that has a distinct tooth. Onthe rough sheet of paper shown here, a draw ing of the samesitter has a bold, granular quality. Once again, the artistmoves the chalk back and forth gradually so that it hits thepeaks and skips over the valleys. With each successivemovement of the chalk, more granules of chalk pile up andthe darks become richer. It's almost impossible to see an in-dividual stroke. The granular texture of the sheet dominatesthe drawing.

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DEMONSTRATION 5. DARK-HAIRED MAN 54

Step 1. When you draw your first portrait inchalk, see what you can do with just lines andstrokes—no blending. A hard, fairly slenderstick of chalk, such as a Conte crayon, is bestfor this project. The artist begins by sharpeningthe stick on a sandpaper pad so that the tool willmake slender, distinct lines. He draws the clas-sic egg shape. The portrait is a direct, frontalview, and so the vertical center line divides theface into equal halves. He draws the usual hori-zontal lines to locate the features—with a dou-ble line for the dividing line of the mouth andthe underside of the lower lip. Just two verticallines suggest the cylindrical form of the neck.The artist begins work on the features by plac-ing the ears on cither side of the egg, with thetops of the ears aligning with the eyebrows, andthe lobes aligning with the underside of thenose.

Step 2. Still working with the sharpened tip ofthe chalk, the artist begins to define thecontours of the lower half of the face, startingwith the curves of the cheeks and then workingdownward to the squarish jaw and the roundedchin. He swiftly sketches in the shape of thehair. He strengthens the lines of the neck andsuggests the collar. Then he moves inside theegg to indicate the lines of the eyebrows and theupper lids; the bridge of the nose, the tip, andthe nostrils; and the upper and lower lips. Ascribble indicates the concavity beneath thelower lip. This concavity is always importantbecause it accentuates the roundness of thelower lip.

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Step 3. By now, the point of the chalk has be-gun to wear away and the drawing tool is grow-ing slightly blunt, making a thicker stroke. Theartist strengthens the forms of the eyebrows andeyelids with thicker lines and then moves down-ward to solidify the forms of the nose and lipswith strokes that are also broader than theslender lines in Steps 1 and 2. He refines theshapes of the ears. Then he uses the bluntedpoint of the chalk to block in the shadow planeson the left side of the face and neck, within theeye sockets, and on the left sides of the fea-tures. Most of the face is lighted—the lightconies from the right—and there tire just slenderstrips of shadow on the left sides of the forms.Look back at the portrait of the black sitter, inwhich the effect is just the opposite: most of theface is in shadow with just slender strips of lighton one edge of the face.

Step 4. The artist sharpens the stick once again

to define the eyel ids, the tip of the nose, the

nostrils, and the contours, of the lips with more

exact lines. He also draws the contours of the

hair more precisely and indicates the inner de

tail of the ears, A few lines suggest the collar.

As the chalk grows blunt once again, he con-

tinues to build up the tonal areas with slightly

thicker strokes. He blocks in the tones on the

hair and begins to develop subtleties such as the

groove between the tip of the nose and the up-

per l ip . the cleft in the chin, and the shadows

beneath the earlobes. The guidelines of Steps I

and 2 have been erased.

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Step 5. The blunted tip of the chalk is par-ticularly useful at this stage. Now the artistmoves back over all the tones with short parallelstrokes, gradually building up the modeling.(These strokes are most obvious in the curve ofthe cheek.) We begin to see gradations withinthe tones, such as the light of the cheek curvingaround to the halftone, shadow, and reflectedlight on the other side of the shadow. Buildingup these strokes gradually, the artist darkens theeyebrows, the eye sockets, the nose, the shad-owy upper lip, and the tone beneath the lowerlip. He models the brow and the chin in thesame way that he models the cheek and jaw. Hebuilds up distinct shadow shapes within the hairand darkens the shadow on the neck. The sharpcorner of the chalk adds dark touches within theeyelids and between the lips.

Step 6. Steadily piling stroke upon stroke, theartist continues to develop the tonal gradationsof the brow, cheek, jaw, chin, and neck. He en-riches the tones within the eye sockets and thenmoves downward to darken the side and the un-derside of the nose, the upper lip, and the poolof shadow beneath the lower lip. He darkensthe earlobes, the central shadow in the ears,the nostrils, and the irises. The sharp corner ofthe chalk accentuates the eyebrows and sug-gests individual hairs. Turning the chalk aroundto work with the other end—which he hasn'tsharpened—the artist follows the curves of thesitter's dark hair with broad strokes.

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Step 7. The artist completes the portrait by building up thetones of the face with clusters of slender parallel strokes.The tones of the eye sockets, nose, lips, and ears are fullydeveloped. He darkens the hair with a few more broadstrokes, made with the unsharpened end of the stick. And,

sharpening the stick once again, the artist moves back intothe features, drawing the precise details of the eyelids, irisesand pupils, nostrils, the winglike shape of the upper lip, andthe softer, thicker form of the lower lip.

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DEMONSTRATION 6. BLOND MAN 58

Step 1. To draw a portrait in which you com-bine slender lines, broader strokes, and blend-ing, try a stick of hard pastel. A sheet of rough-textured paper will lend itself especially well toblending with a fingertip or a stomp. The artistbegins by sharpening a stick of hard pastel onthe sandpaper pad. The stick doesn't come to assharp a point as a pencil, of course, but he'sable to draw distinct lines with it. Notice howthe rough texture of the paper breaks up thelines of the compound egg shape. Because themodel is turned to a three-quarter view, the ver-tical center line moves to the left of the egg.However, the horizontal guidelines of the eyes,nose, and mouth arc in their usual places. Onthese horizontal lines, the artist makes tinymarks to locate the eyes, nostrils, and cornersof the mouth, At the extreme right of the head,he makes two small horizontal marks to alignthe ears with the eyebrows and the underside ofthe nose. As usual, the neck is a slanted cylin-der.

Step 2. By this l ime, the sharpened stick ofhard pastel is glowing slightly blunt, and so theartist sharpens it again on the sandpaper pad.Then he draws the angular contours of thehead—the brow, checks, jaw, chin, and neck—over the guidelines of Step 1. With just a fewcurving lines, he indicates the shape of the hair,which crosses the forehead and extends abovethe curve of the skull. He begins to draw thefeatures over the familiar guidelines and com-pletes this stage by suggesting the triangularshape of the collar.

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• • • - • - • • • . .

Step 3. Erasing the guidelines of Step 1. theartist begins to define the features moreprecisely. He draws the slender eyelids andconstructs the blocky end of the nose—with theone nostril wing that shows in this three-quarterview. Now you see the familiar winglike shapeof the upper lip. The artist adds a curve justabove the chin to define the bony shape. Hesquares up the corner of the jaw and then movesupward to draw the internal detail of the ear. Onthe hard surface of the paper, chalk sometimessmudges or even disappears; this has happenedto the line of the jaw just to the left of themouth. But the line can be easily redrawn in thenext step.

Step 4. The rectangular stick of hard pastel isstill fairly sharp, and so now the artist blocks inthe tonal areas with clusters of parallel strokes.Notice how the strokes change direction as theymove downward from the brow to the cheek tothe jaw, following the direction of the form.The tone on the slanted side of the nose is ren-dered with slanted lines. The artist fills the eyesocket with tone; places the shadow beneath thenose; fills the upper lip with shadow; and indi-cates the deep shadow beneath the lower lip.With the flat side of the stick, he blocks in thetonal areas on the hair. Then, sharpening thestick once again, he adds more detail to the eyesand ear.

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Step 5. Moving a fingertip gently over the sur-face of the drawing, the artist blends the strokesof Step 4 selectively. He gradually blurs thetones on the side of the brow, cheek, jaw, andneck, but doesn't eliminate all the strokes. Youcan still see some of them. In the same way, hegently merges the strokes within the eye sock-ets, along the side of the nose, and beneath thenose and lower lip. A few broad sweeps of thethumb convert the strokes of the hair into tone.The sharp point of a stomp gets into smallerareas such as the eyebrows and eyes in order tofuse the strokes. Turning the stick of hard pastelto the opposite end and working with the flattip, the artist adds dark strokes to the hair, eye-brows, eyes, cheek, and jaw, sometimes blend-ing them with a fingertip and sometimes leavingthem alone. With the side of the chalk, he addsa dark tone above the head and then blends thiswith his thumb.

Step 6. The sharpened end of the chalk definesthe outer contours of the face more precisely;compare the check with Step 5. The artist thendraws the eyelids more exactly, adding thepupils and the dark accents at the corners of theeyes. He defines the nostrils and the shape ofthe upper l i p , darkening the corners of themouth. He adds more darks within the ear.Then he continues to strengthen the darks byadding clusters of short parallel strokes to theeye sockets, the tip of the nose, the brow, andthe cheek, blending these with a fingertip or apaper stomp, The side of the chalk darkens thehair and shoulders with broad strokes, whichare quickly blended with the thumb.

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S t e p 7. The artist presses his fingertip against thesandpaper pad, picks up some chalk dust, and gentlyspreads this tone over the shadow planes of the face: theforehead, check, jaw, neck, eye sockets, nose, and lips. Inthe same way, he adds tone to the neck, hair, ear, and col-

lar. The point of the chalk darkens the contours of the eye-lids, plus the tones of the eyebrows and lips. A kneadederaser brightens the lighted patches, and a razor bladescratches highlights into the eyes.

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DEMONSTRATION 7. ORIENTAL WOMAN 62

Step 1. Chalk smudges so easily that you canblend it like wet oil paint. Now try a portraitthat consists almost entirely of soft, blendedtones. The artist draws this portrait of an Orien-tal woman with a stick of hard pastel on a sheetof charcoal paper. This type of paper has ahard, delicately textured surface on which chalkcan be blended very smoothly. The tough sur-face will take a lot of rubbing from a fingertip, astomp, or an eraser. By now, Step 1 is familiar:the classic egg shape, cylindrical neck, and ver-tical and horizontal guidelines to locate the fea-tures. However, as you look back, at the variousdemonstrations you've seen so far, notice thatnot all the egg shapes are exactly alike. Thereare subtle differences in height and width.Some are tall and relatively slender, while oth-ers are rounder, like the soft form of thiswoman's face.

Step 2. Over the guidelines of Step I, the artistconstnicts the actual shape of the head and hair.He defines the curves of the cheeks, the squar-ish shapes of the jaw, and the rounded chin.With long, curving lines, he draws the sweep ofthe hair that surrounds the entire head and neck.A few slanted lines suggest the collar, The fea-tures are hung on the horizontal guidelineswithin the egg. Notice that he indicates not onlythe eyes, but also the inside corners of the eyesockets on either side of the nose. The lines inSteps 1 and 2 arc executed with the sharp cornerof the rectangular stick of chalk. As one cornerwears down, the artist turns the chalk in hishand and uses the next corner. The corners staysharp just long enough to execute the prelimi-nary line drawing.

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Step 3. The artist uses the square end of thechalk to block in tones with broad strokes. Asingle curving stroke is placed on either side ofthe nose. A few more short strokes suggest theshadows around the nostrils and beneath the tipof the nose. Short, broad strokes place the shad-ows in the outside corners of the eyes, along thecheeks and jaw, and at the pit of the neck. Thelips are filled with tone. The dark irises aremade with quick touches of the blunt end of thechalk. And then the hair is filled with long, freestrokes to indicate the dark tone. At this stage,the chalk glides lightly over the surface of thepaper, merely indicating tonal areas that will bedeveloped in later steps.

Step 4. Pressing harder on the square end ofthe chalk, the artist darkens the irises and ex-tends the shadows on either side of the nose.Then, with the sharp corner of the stick, hedraws the dark lines of the eyelids and thenostrils. Moving the blunt end of the sticklightly over the paper, he gradually darkens thetones within the eye sockets. He picks up ashort chunk of chalk—perhaps a broken stick orsimply one that's worn down—to darken thehair and neck with broad strokes, He uses theflat side of the stick and presses down harderagainst the paper,

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Step 5. Moving a fingertip gently over the pa-per, the artist begins to smudge the strokeswithin the eye sockets, beneath the nose, andalong the sides of the cheeks. With a kneadederaser, he lightens the shadows on either side ofthe nose. He blends the strokes on the neck,blurring the line of the chin. With the flat sideof the short chunk of chalk, he darkens the hairand blends this area with his thumb, carryingsome of the hair tone into the shadows beneaththe cheeks, He blends the lips very slightly.Then he uses the sharp corner of the chalk to re-define the eyebrows, eyes, nostrils, and lips,softening these strokes with a quick touch of afingertip.

Step 6. The artist's thumb and one or two fin-gers are now coated with chalk dust. He useshis fingers like a brush to spread tones on thesides of the forehead, beneath the cheeks, alongthe sides of the jaw, and on the neck, whichgrows distinctly darker than in Step 5, The fin-ger places very pale tones on either side of thenose and darkens the corners of the eye sockets.Then the sharp corner of the chalk restates theeyebrows, eyelids, nostrils, and lips. Small,precise strokes add pupils to the eyes, sharpenthe nostrils, and define the dark corners of themouth. The Mat side of the short chalk sweepsover the hair with long, broad strokes. Akneaded eraser is squeezed to a point to pick outhighlights on the pupils, brighten the whites ofthe eyes, clean the edges of the lips, and createhighlights on the lower lip.

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Step 7. The artist blends the tone of the hair with his finger-tips, blurring (he contours and adding a few strokes to sug-gest detail. His fingers are coated with chalk dust, which hecarefully spreads over the face to add delicate halftones tothe forehead, cheeks, and jaw, and to darken the neck and

the underside of the nose. The kneaded rubber eraser bright-ens the lighted areas of the forehead, eye sockets, cheeks,nose, upper lip, and chin. The sharp corner of the chalkstrengthens the upper eyelids and adds a few eyelashes.

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CHARCOAL DRAWING 66

Slender Strokes. A hard or medium charcoal pencil canbe sharpened to a fairly precise point to make crisp strokes.The tones of the sitter's hair, forehead, and eyes are built upwith clusters of parallel strokes made by the sharp point.The artist builds one cluster of strokes over another todarken the tones within the eye sockets, beneath the eyes,and along the side of the nose. The slender strokes in thehair are made by the point of the pencil, while the broaderstrokes are made by the side of the lead.

Broad Strokes. A soft charcoal pencil has a thick leadthat's suitable for a broad-stroke technique. So does a stickof charcoal—in your hand or in a holder. Compare thewider, rougher strokes in this drawing with the more precisestrokes in the drawing at the left. The soft charcoal pencil orthe charcoal stick can be sharpened to do a certain amountof precise work—such as the slender strokes in the hair andwithin the eyes—but the point wears down quickly. Artistsgenerally work with the side of the soft pencil or the stick tocover broad areas.

Strokes on Charcoal Paper. The strokes of the hard andmedium charcoal pencils arc particularly effective on char-coal paper, as you might expect. The ribbed texture of thesheet softens the strokes, which are filled with pinpoints ofbare paper. Look at the tones on the side of the nose andcheek, the shadow beneath the nose, and the dark tone ofthe lips—they seem transparent and filled with inner light.The tiny flecks of bare paper make even the darkest tonelook luminous.

Strokes on Rough Paper. The strokes of a charcoal pen-cil or a stick of charcoal look lively and spontaneous on pa-per with a ragged texture. The granular texture of (hecharcoal is accentuated by the coarse surface. The strokes inthis portrait are bolder—though less distinct—than the moresharply defined strokes in the drawing at your left. It'sworthwhile to try rough paper because it encourages you towork with bold, free strokes. And you have to keep thedrawing simple, since you can't build up too much detail.

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CHARCOAL DRAWING 67

Modeling with Strokes. This face is drawn with hard andmedium charcoal pencils. The artist builds up his strokes inclusters which change direction as the form curves. Noticehow the strokes wrap around (he corners of the eye socketsand slant diagonally down the side of the nose. The groupsof strokes gradually change direction as they move aroundthe sides of the cheeks. Don't just dive in and start scrib-bling! Plan your strokes.

Modeling by Blending. A medium charcoal pencilblends easily, while a soft pencil or stick of natural charcoalblends still more easily. In this drawing of the same sitter,the artist blocks in the tones with broad, casual strokes andthen smudges them with a fingertip to form soft, velvetytones. He doesn't blend the strokes so thoroughly that theydisappear, but allows some of them to show through theblurred tones. You can see this most clearly on the cheek,within the eye sockets, and along the side of the nose,where the underlying strokes add solidity to the soft, mistyveils of tone.

Strokes and Blending on Charcoal Paper. The hardsurface of charcoal paper is ideal for a technique that com-bines slender lines like those along the bottom of the noseand between the lips; broad strokes like the ones on theshadow side of the face; and blended areas, which you seethroughout this close-up of a male portrait. The artist uses asharply pointed hard charcoal pencil for the precise linesand edges in this drawing, switching to a soft pencil for thebroad strokes and then blending the tones with a stomp.

Strokes and Blending on Rough Paper. The granularstrokes of a stick of natural charcoal look particularly effec-tive on the ragged surface of a sheet of rough drawing pa-per. The textures of the paper and the strokes seem tomatch. When the strokes are blended, natural charcoal be-haves like wet oil paint, which you can spread easily overthe surface with a fingertip or a stomp. And you can use asandpaper pad to make the stick just sharp enough to drawlines like those you see on the nose and between the lips.

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DEMONSTRATION 8. BROWN-HAIRED WOMAN 68

Step 1. Like graphite pencil and chalk, char-coal handles beautifully on any sturdy whitedrawing paper that has a moderate amount oftexture—just enough to shave off the granulesof charcoal as you move the drawing tool acrossthe surface of the sheet. Charcoal blends soeasily that it's always tempting to smudge thelones of a charcoal drawing; but resist thistemptation and begin with a portrait in whichyou render the tones entirely with strokes. Inthis portrait, the artist uses a combination ofthree charcoal pencils: hard, medium, and soft.He begins with the hard pencil, sharpened to apoint, for the preliminary sketch of the com-pound egg shape, with its vertical and horizon-tal guidelines. The head is turned to the right,and so the center line moves to the right too.Since the sitter's head is tilted slightly down-ward, the horizontal lines curve gently aroundthe egg. The artist follows these curves to localethe ear, which seems a little high on the headbut actually aligns with the curving guidelinesof the eyes and nose.

Step 2. The hard charcoal pencil draws thecontours of the head and hair with pale lines—the artist doesn't press too hard. The eyebrows,eyes, nose, and mouth are carefully placed onthe curving guidelines of Step 1. Because thehead tilts slightly downward, the hairline seemsto come farther down the forehead and we seemore of the top of the head, Curving lines wrapthe shape of the hair around the top of the eggand bring the hair down around the sides of theface. Even at this early stage, the upper lip be-gins to have its characteristic double-wingshape. When the head is turned to a three-quar-ter view, the vertical center line is particularlyimportant in helping you line up the bridge andunderside of the nose, the groove between thenose and upper l ip, the center of the lips, andthe midpoint of the chin. In this view, the eye atthe right is close to the center line, while the eyeat the left is farther away.

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Step 3. The point of the hard charcoal pencillasts longer than the point on a medium or softpencil, and so the artist continues to work withit to draw the precise shapes of the eyes, nose,mouth, cheeks, jaw, and chin. Now you can seeboth lids, the concave corner of one eye socket,the exact shape of the nostril, the winglikeshape of the upper lip, and the full, squarishlower lip. Having defined the features, the artistscribbles the point of the hard pencil lightlyover the tonal areas of the head: the hair, fore-head, check, jaw, neck, eye sockets, nose, andlips. By the end of Step 3 , he's established aclear distinction between the light and shadowareas of the head.

Step 4. Switching to a medium charcoal pen-cil, the artist starts to built! up the tones on theforehead, cheek, jaw, neck, eye sockets, nose,and lips. Notice how he swings the pencil in ashort arc so that the strokes match the curves ofthe sitter's face. These curved strokes are mostapparent on the forehead, cheek, and jaw. butthere are also smaller ones within the eye sock-ets and along the side of the nose. Notice howthe dark hollow within the check is suggestedby a second row of slanted strokes that overlapthe first cluster. When one cluster of strokescrosses another at an angle—as you see here—this technique is called hatching. The sharppoint of the medium charcoal pencil strengthensthe contours of the eyes, adding a delicate tonebeneath the upper lid to suggest the shadow thatthe lid casts on the eye. The point of the pencilalso defines the shape of the lips.

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Step 5. Turning the medium charcoal lead onits side, the artist continues to build up the toneswith broad, curving strokes. Onee again, hegoes over the side of the forehead, cheek, jaw.and neck, darkening and solidifying the tones ofSteps 3 and 4. (Notice how much broader thestrokes are becoming at this stage.) He deepensthe tones within the eye sockets and along theunderside of the nose. He accentuates theshadow lines around the eyelids and adds the in-ternal detail of the ear. With big. free move-ments, he darkens the hair by scribbling thepencil back and forth with curving strokes tosuggest the texture of the sitter's curls. Wherethe dark hair silhouettes the lighted side of theface, he strengthens the line of the brow, cheek,jaw, and chin. The head now looks far morethree-dimensional than it did in Step 4.

Step 6. The soft charcoal pencil makes a muchdarker, broader stroke than the hard and me-dium pencils the artist has used so far. Now heuses a soft pencil to darken the curls of the sit-ter's hair with clusters of short, thick strokes.Now there's a much stronger contrast betweenthe pale tones of the face and the surroundingdarks. The soft pencil is just sharp enough todarken the eyebrows, eyes, nostrils, and theshadow beneath the nosc. Notice the hint ofshadow beneath the upper eyelids.

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Step 7. The artist darkens the hair with broad, curvingstrokes of the soft charcoal pencil. The pencil moves overthe face to deepen the shadows on the forehead, cheek, jaw,and neck, and to darken the eye sockets, lips, and the tonesthat surround the nose. The artist focuses on the eyes again,

darkening the lines of the eyelids, adding pupils, and sug-gesting lashes. A kneaded eraser brightens the whiles of theeyes, picks out highlights on the pupils, adds touches oflight on the lids, and then carefully cleans the lighted areason the face.

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DEMONSTRATION 9. BLACK WOMAN 72

Step 1. To demonstrate a technique that com-bines strokes with blended tones, the artistchooses an interesting trio of drawing tools. Heworks with a medium charcoal pencil and twosticks of compressed charcoal, one medium andone soft. Compressed charcoal is made ofcrushed charcoal granules that have beenbonded together under pressure to make a stickthai behaves somewhat like hard pastel—incontrast with natural charcoal, which is literallya charred twig. Compressed charcoal makes amore precise stroke that doesn't smudge quiteas easily as the natural variety. The artist drawshis preliminary guidelines with the mediumcharcoal pencil on a sheet of charcoal paper, asurface on which blending is particularly effec-tive.

Step 2. The charcoal pencil begins to draw thecontours of the face over the guidelines of Step1. The artist places the features on the horizon-tal guidelines, aligning the cars with the eyesand nose. He surrounds the head with the circu-lar contour of the sitter's hair. The ribbed sur-face of the charcoal paper is already apparent atthis stage. Since the drawing will be dominatedby broad strokes and smudged tones, the artistdoesn't want the preliminary lines to be sharpand wiry; the charcoal paper softens the lines sothey'll melt away into the tones of the com-pleted drawing,

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Step 3. The artist develops the curves of thesitter's cheeks, jaw, arid chin with the pencil.Then he defines the rounded shapes of the fea-tures more exactly. You see the curves of theeyebrows and eyelids, the rounded shapes ofthe nostrils and the tip of the nose, and the full,sculptural lips. This is the last time we'll see theguidelines of Step I. which are erased after thecompletion of Step 3.

Step 4. Picking up the medium stick of com-pressed charcoal, the artist blunts the stick onthe sandpaper pad so that it wi l l make broadstrokes when he holds it at an angle to the pa-per. Then the artist sweeps the tool diagonallyacross the drawing, filling the hair and face withthick, irregular strokes. Moving around the fea-tures, he darkens the eye sockets, eyes, nose,and lips with broad strokes. At this stage, thethick compressed charcoal moves very lightlyover the paper, since the artist's purpose is sim-ply to establish the major areas of light andshadow. Although at this stage the drawing isquite pale, the artist has already recorded thedramatic lighting.

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Step 5. Moving his thumb firmly over thedrawing—since compressed charcoal needssome pressure to blend—the artist softens andfuses the strokes of Step 4 on the forehead,within the eye sockets, on the cheeks and jaw,and on the neck and shoulder. Picking up themedium charcoal stick again, he darkens thehair with scribbly strokes that begin to suggestthe texture of the sitter's curls. The blunt char-coal stick darkens the forehead; adds more toneto the eye sockets; accentuates the irises and theshadows beneath the eyes; builds up the tonesaround the nose and lips; and adds strongerdarks to the side of the face, neck, and shoul-der. The lighter side of the cheek is dramatizedby a touch of darkness on the left.

Step 6. Now the artist reaches for the soft stickof compressed charcoal to intensify the darksthroughout the drawing. He presses hard on thestick to enrich the hair with short, curvingstrokes. He darkens the tones around the fea-tures with broad strokes and then blends themwith a stomp, which gets into these tight spotsmore easily than a fingertip. Sharpening thecompressed charcoal stick—which holds apoint better than a stick of natural charcoal—headds crisp, dark strokes to the eyebrows, eyes,nostrils, and lips. So far, the features have allbeen soft and indistinct; now they come intosharp focus. Broad strokes darken the cheekand the shadow beneath the chin, and the artistblends them with a fingertip.

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Step 7. The soft charcoal stick glides gently over all thetonal areas of the face, making broad, soft strokes that youcan see most clearly in the cheek, jaw, and neck. The artistblends these strokes with his thumb, slowly building up thedramatic effect of light and shade. Thick strokes are addedto the hair and partially blended with the thumb, allowingthe strokes to remain distincl enough to communicate the

detail of the sitter's hair. The point of the charcoal stickstrengthens the edges of the features with sharp lines thatheighten the contours of the eyelids, nostrils, and lips. Awad of kneaded rubber cleans the lighted areas of the face.The finished drawing retains the vitality of the bold strokes,which the artist blends but never eradicates.

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DEMONSTRATION 10. GRAY-HAIRED MAN 76

Step 1. The ancient stick of natural charcoal—which is just a twig that's been heated until itturns black—is one of humankind's most mi-raculous drawing instruments. That black, crum-bly twig delivers an extraordinary range ofsmoky tones that you can blend with a fingertipto "paint" a black-and-white portrait as rich andsubtle as any oil painting. For this final demon-stration, the artist chooses an extremely roughsheet of paper with a hard, ragged surface that'sexcellent for blending. Sharpening a stick of nat-ural charcoal on a sandpaper pad, the artist drawsa compound egg shape that is turned to a three-quarter view. You sec the usual guidelines. Thelines made by the charcoal stick are rough andbold, but they'll quickly disappear with a meretouch of the fingertip as the artist begins to blendhis tones.

Step 2. A natural charcoal stick is never quiteas sharp as a charcoal pencil, so the lines al-ways have a broad, irregular quality—which ispart of their beauty. The artist begins to drawthe contours of the head with quick, rhythmicstrokes, letting the stick coast lightly over therough surface of the paper. The lines aren't neatand precise, but they're full of vitality. The art-ist doesn't draw too carefully, since these lineswill melt away when he begins to blend thetones in later steps. Notice how the irregularsurface of the paper breaks up the lines.

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Step 3. The line drawing of the face and fea-tures is completed. Although the lines are gran-ular and broken, the artist defines the shapes ofthe eyelids, nose, lips, and car. He reshapes thecontours of the checks, jaw, and chin. He de-velops the distinctive shape of the hair and sug-gests the collar with just a few strokes. Asidefrom establishing a reasonable likeness, thepurpose of this line drawing is to provide aguide for the big masses of tone that will comenext—and bury the lines!

Step 4. Holding the charcoal stick at an angleto the paper, the artist blocks in the big massesof tone with broad, irregular strokes. He worksswiftly and decisively, leaving Dig gaps be-tween the strokes. The gaps don't matter be-cause the strokes will soon be blended to formsmooth tones. The head suddenly becomesboldly three-dimensional as the artist places bigshadows on the side planes of the brow, check,jaw, neck, eyes, nose, and chin. The upper lipturns away from the light into darkness. Thenose casts a shadow downward toward the up-per lip. And there are jagged shadows withinthe collar. Even at this early stage, the drawinghas the simplicity and power which are uniqueto natural charcoal. The artist could stop here,but he goes on because the purpose of this dem-onstration is to show the rich tonal possibilitiesof the medium.

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Step 5. The artist lets his fingertip glide lightlyover the tonal areas of Step 4, gently fusing therough strokes into soft, smoky tones. Suddenly,we have a totally new drawing! The lines andstrokes of the first four steps have practicallydisappeared as the artist transforms them intosubtle shades of gray. Then the charcoal stickmoves back over the smoky tones to sharpencertain details, such as the inner shapes of thecar, the corners of the eyes, the underside of thenose, the square contour of the jaw, and theshapes of the lips.

Step 6. Now the artist keeps switching backand forth between the charcoal stick and his fin-gertip. Short, thick strokes darken the eye-brows, eye sockets, nose, lips, cheek, and chin.The artist blends these strokes very gently witha fingertip—or with a stomp when the area istoo small for his fingertip. The technique is tomake a few strokes and blend them, and thenmake a few more strokes and blend them, grad-ually building up the tones and accentuating thedetails, Sharpening the stick on a sandpaperpad, the artist draws crisp lines within the eyes,blackens the pupils, and deftly picks out high-lights within the pupils with the sharp corner ofa razor blade. Dark, slender lines redefine theshapes of the nose and chin. The artist strength-ens the corners of the mouth and adds a fewwisps of hair over the ear. He adds detail veryselectively, without overdoing it.

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Step 7. The artist goes back over the tonal areas with addi-tional strokes and blends them with his finger, graduallydarkening the shadows until there's a powerful contrast be-tween the dark and light sides of the forms. In Step 6, yousaw sharp lines surrounding many of the features; now theselines are softly blended so that they fuse with the surround-ing shadows. There are almost no lines in the final drawing,

except for a few sharp touches of the charcoal stick withinthe eyes and ear, inside the nostrils, and between the lips.The kneaded eraser brightens the forehead, cheeks, nose,and chin, "draws" some wrinkles in the cheek on the left,and lifts some patches of light out of the hair. The corner ofthe razor blade scratches some white lines into the hair andbrightens the highlights on the pupils.

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LIGHTING 80

Three-quarter Lighting, Learn to identify the directionof the light before you start to draw a portrait. Here, thelight comes from the left side, over your shoulder. Most ofthe face is brightly lit, but there arc narrow strips of shadowon the right sides of all the forms, This is a flattering lightfor most sitters.

Side Lighting. The light no longer comes over your leftshoulder, bin seems to be at the sitter's side, placing moreof the face in shadow. Most of the right side is dark, with asmall, bright triangle on the cheek that curves forward tocatch the light. The protruding nose casts a dark shadow onits right side, The eye sockets are also in deeper shadow.

Frontal Lighting. When the light hits the sitter directly inthe middle of his face, there are big patches of light in thecenters of all the forms, with shadows around the edges.Thus, the forehead is bright in the middle and shadowy atthe sides. So are the nose, cheeks, and chin. The chin andjaw cast a strong shadow down the center of the neck.

Rim Lighting. This light source is behind the sitter, andmost of his face is in shadow. But the light creeps aroundthe edges (or the rims) of the face. Although the front of theface is in darkness, there's a distinct contrast between theshadows and the halftones that define the features. Shadowsare rarely pitch-black: they're filled with subtle light.

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Portrait drawing

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Transcript of Portrait drawing