Drawing Guides for Faces

Learning to draw the human face is a challenging endeavor that requires an awareness of proportion, shape, and negative space. However, the most important skill needed to master the human portrait is patience and a desire to try, study, and repeat. There are many types of guides, both online, in DVD and in print, that are available to assist in the portrait learning process. Several of the most renowned and effective resources are reviewed here, as well as their effective points, cost, and any negative aspects.

One of the most popular print drawing guides is Giovanni Civardi's "Drawing Portraits: Faces and Figures." Civardi is a well known Italian art teacher who incorporates aspects of proportions, proper lighting, and best types of drawing material to produce realistic faces. He also provides useful general tips on facial structure and feature placement. When describing techniques to the reader, Civardi assumes a basic understanding of shading, sketching, and special relations, making this guide ill suited for beginners. "Drawing Portraits: Faces and Figures" contains 64 pages.

Individuals interested in drawing faces that are not necessarily realistic may find "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Faces" helpful. In this little book, Emberley walks the reader step by step through drawing a variety of cartoon faces, utilizing an awareness of basic shapes, color, and proportion. The guide is simple enough for children and beginners to use and creates a great foundation for future portrait development. "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Faces" contains 48 pages.

A great online drawing guide is "Proportion and Structure of the Human Head" at the About.com drawing and sketching page. The page provides the absolute basic techniques for drawing the human face, from gridding out the space to creating the appropriate facial shape, all in an easy-to-follow format. It also provides more lessons on how an artist can build on basic skills and learn to draw the face from a living model. This drawing guide is available free and contains links to many other worthwhile resources.

At the DrawingCoach.com, a professional video game designer provides exhaustive tutorials on how to quickly and effectively learn to draw the human face. The lessons, available in text format or as a video guide, cover all aspects of the process, from shading to perspective to specific feature creation. The lessons are free and very detailed. They provide good points for advanced beginners and intermediate artists.

Individuals who learn better by seeing and hearing than reading will find the DVD "Mastering Portrait Drawing, Volume 1" to be a helpful drawing guide. The DVD is hosted by Michael Britton, a successful portrait artist who goes over not only the basics of portrait drawing but also the fundamental way to hold pencils, care for drawing materials and preserve sketches. Britton also goes over the importance of special measuring and scaling to size to create accurate likenesses. The DVD is 220 minutes long.