This is the sixth tutorial in a series of portrait sketching tutorials for complete beginners. You can read the previous tutorials here:

Tutorial #1: Pencil Portrait Sketching for Complete Beginners - SBD Reward for Three Best Sketches

Tutorial #2: Drawing Face Outline

Tutorial #3: Drawing The Eyes

Tutorial #4: Shading Areas Around the Eyes

Tutorial #5: Shading the Nose

If you haven't read the previous tutorials I highly encourage you to go through them because the rest of the tutorials will be the continuation of the past tutorials.

In this tutorial I will teach you to shade the mouth. Shading the mouth is a lot easier that shading the nose. I hope you still remember about making contrast from the previous tutorial. Always refer to your reference image whenever you shade any part of the portrait. Compare the skin tones so that you know where to add darker shading or lighter shading.

I used 3B pencil throughout this tutorial. I also labeled the parts that we need to shade for easy reference. I will use these labels (a, b, c etc) to refer to those parts so that it is easier to explain and for you to understand.

So let's begin!

Shading the Mouth

Step 1 - Upper Lip

Erase the grid lines on the mouth.

Step 2

Shade the mouth by drawing lines on the upper lip. Make sure the lines follow the contour of the lip.

Step 3

Continue to draw the lines on the upper lip until the area is fully shaded.

Step 4

If the lip outline is too dark, use your art eraser to erase the outline. Otherwise just leave it as it is.

Step 5

Draw the outline on part a. Make sure to incude the the lip wrinkles. Draw lip wrinkles on part b.

Step 6

Darken the upper lip by drawing more lines (part a). Darken the area around the bottom outline (part b).

Step 7

Use your art eraser to create some highlights (part a).

Step 8 - Lower Lip

Draw lines to shade the lower lip. Make sure the lines follow the contour of the lip.

Step 9

Continue to draw lines until the area is fully shaded.

Step 10

Darken part a to part b by adding more lines.

Step 11

Darken the lower portion of the lip by adding more lines from part a to part b.

Step 12

Draw some lip wrinkles on part a, b and c.

Step 13

Use your art eraser to create highlights.

Step 14 - Teeth

Darken the areas on part a and part b. Add shadow on lower teeth (part d) and also on part c.

Step 15

Continue to add shadow on part a and part b. Add a little bit of shadow on part c and d.

Step 16

Draw some hatching lines around the mouth.

Step 17

...and that's it...your mouth should look like this!

So that's it for tutorial part 6. Is it too hard or does it help you to draw better? Please leave your comments below! Thank you.

Note: In the next tutorial we will learn to shade the easy but the most tedious part - HAIR.

Stay tuned!

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NOTE: I have thought long and hard about this. To encourage people to learn, I would like to offer some reward in the form of SBD to 3 people who could sketch the best portraits by the end of this tutorial series. I haven't decided on how much the reward will be though. I am thinking of giving SBD3 to the best portrait, SBD2 to the second one and SBD1 to the third. I know it's not much but I am just a lowly minnow who doesn't earn much yet, unless we have some sponsors or the response is encouraging.

So here are the rules:

1. Upvote and resteem this post
2. Draw a portrait exactly the way I taught it in this tutorial series (there will be several posts covering different facial features)
3. Make a post for your entry (add pencilportraitnoob in the tags). Make sure you spell it correctly.
4. At the end of this tutorial series, please link to your post in the comments so that I could find your entry

Is this too complicated? If you are not clear, maybe you can leave me a comment.

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Some of my pencil portrait posts on Steemit:

Jerry and Barbie - A Tribute to Meteor Garden On 16th Anniversary

Pencil Portrait of My Mother - Madam Veronica G. Bedindang

Pencil Portrait of My Husband and Son

Pencil Portrait: Luciana Zogbi - A Brazilian Lebanese Beauty

Pencil Portrait: Sabina Altynbekova - The Living Anime-Girl

Upvote, Resteem & Follow Me @coloringiship