Drawing people is one of the hardest things to accomplish for new artists. The thing to keep in mind is to go very SLOW. The untrained eye is prone to jerky movements. Your eye will jump around the picture that you are trying to draw making it hard for the message to go to your hand correctly. “Eyes find it really hard to travel at the same consistent speed. They flitter about, drag their feet, then dart ahead, just like a brand new driver jamming on the brakes, then hitting the gas.” (Gregory, 27). You should feel like your eyes are-dragging along, and your drawing will take an eternity to finish. Good, that means you are going slow enough to catch little details.

To draw people, or anything, well you need to get rid of your preconceptions. Instead of looking at a face and seeing an “eye,” a “nose,” and “lips;” break down those things into the shapes of shadows and highlights that make up the features. See how the completely black and white picture looks like a face, but it is made up of unrecognizable shapes? That’s what I’m talking about here. All images are made up of dark, medium, and light shapes that our brain receives and translates into recognizable features.

When drawing people, I find it helpful to use a grid method. I divide my picture up into a series of squares, and my paper into the same amount of squares in the same proportion. Then I go one square at a time, filling in on my paper, every little shape I see in the picture. Once every square is filled in, you should have a beautiful picture! Don’t be to worried if things don’t line up correctly. That means you went too fast somewhere and you can always go back and re-work it.

Look at some of the people pictures I’ve drawn. And I would be delighted to see some of yours. E-mail me at [email protected].

Gregory, Danny. The Creative Licence. 1st ed. New York; Hyperion, 2006. 27.