Monthly Archives: July 2023

This week we’ll put it all together with an accent on hair. Just as vegetation clothes the underlying topology of the landscape, hair clothes the head, so it’s important not to lose track of the underlying structures of the head. In the portrait above the hair was depicted largely as masses of tone with linear marks showing the direction in which individual hairs lay. I drew several studies of Lucy and photographed her before painting the final portrait in watercolour.

Except for Lucy, above, and the drawing of the young redhead further on in this post, all of these portraits were drawn directly from life.

For a moustache to look convincing make sure the underlying shape of the upper jaw is drawn correctly.

Similarly with a beard, draft in the jaw line and position the ears correctly, before overlaying the beard. With a particularly dense beard you may just have to draw the beard in relation to the mouth and ears. Getting the tones of the main masses of hair in will help to make it look convincing.

This young woman was drawn rapidly on the Jubilee Line on my way to North Greenwich. Here the head shape was drawn before adding the hair and headset.

This young girl has featured in a previous blog. I decided to just suggest her plaits rather than draw them in great detail. Again it was important to establish the overall head shape and position the ears before adding the hair. The hair was worked tonally before adding a suggestion of individual hairs in a fairly loose manner.

Note how in this portrait the facial features are framed by the hair, earrings and blouse collar. Also I have been fairly adventurous with colour, accentuating the blueness of the shadow areas. Have fun with your portraits this week! Use whatever medium you like and concentrate on hair, or a head with a covering hat, cap, headset or other!

Your drawings:

Everyone was allowed to spend up to 15 minutes on each of the sketches on the sheets below;

Very well done as there were some challenging angles and head gear!

This week we’ll look at the mouth and chin. The first thing to note is that the upper jaw is fixed so when the mouth is closed it is the muscles alone that enable us to smile and also to appear relaxed or concentrating. Fred in the drawing above looks as though his interest has been caught by something, he’s concentrating rather than smiling or looking sad. Notice the curve where the lips meet and the shadows below the lower lip and on the chin. This curve between the lips appears very different on the smiling lady below, as the muscles of her face pull the corners of her mouth up.

To understand what happens when we let out a yell or sing have a look at the link below where you will find an excellent drawing of the skull with jaw closed and with it dropped, and also shows the appearance of the face in these two positions.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/448248969177542053/

Below is a link to another rather more fun image showing the hinging of the jaw and various facial expressions.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/663155113905951759/

In the pastel portrait of Beth below, her mouth is slightly open. Do resist the temptation to try to draw every tooth you can see, very often just a suggestion of teeth and of the dark areas at the sides of the mouth is much more effective than the hard look of teeth drawn in full detail. This looks especially bad if the rest of the face is treated in a softly drawn manner to convey the smooth softness of a child’s face.

So this week I would like you to make at least one study of a closed mouth and one of an open mouth.Then produce a portrait painting or a three crayon study where the mouth is a little open or wide open. You may choose to work in any medium but do pay particular attention to the teeth and go very gently, especially if you are drawing a young person.

There are instances of course, where you may want to depict a real grimace in which case you can afford to be as bold as you like!

Your Paintings/Drawings:

This week we tackle the nose. Several of you will have tackled the nose in profile view last week. That is possibly the easiest view, so this week after making a few studies of noses I suggest you make a portrait where you are directly facing the model or a three quarter view.

First of all it may be useful to consider the structure and anatomy of the nose. As with ears noses vary a good deal but all have the same basic anatomy. Only the upper part is bone, the nasal bone, which connects with the skull at its upper end at the glabella, and at each side with the maxilla (don’t even try to remember the names unless you are into crosswords, Trivial Pursuit and the like). The rest of the nose consists of cartilages which form the lower part of the nose and the “ball” of the nose. Two wings of fatty tissue connect with the cartilage on either side of the nose ball, and wrap around the base of the nose forming the nostrils.

In many adults a bump part way down the nose can be seen where the bone meets the cartilage. As with other features this is usually a much smoother transition in young children.

A good picture of the anatomy of the nose can be found at

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/448248969177398119/

There is a six minute video at the start of this post by Stan Prokopenko explaining how to simplify the nose into four main planes sides, top and base and how the nose appears in relation to the rest of the head when the head moves from side to side and up and down.

Make several studies of noses and how they appear from directly in front and in three quarter view. Note how the nose protrudes from the general mid-line of the head. Then draw a nose when the head is tilted up so that the nostrils are visible and down with the chin tucked in. If possible draw from the same person, otherwise work from whatever reference you can find. These should be sketches that show the structure so no need to work them up. Lastly make a portrait drawing where the nose is dramatically lit from the side or at least from an angle that produces strong areas of light and dark on the nose in question.

For inspiration on how other artists have tackled the nose look at my Pinterest Portrait board at https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jhall1282/portraits/

Hope you enjoy the nose!

Your Drawings: