The secret to drawing a great portrait

To create a portrait that really looks like the subject, there are two key aspects that you need to get right. See if you can guess these two aspects by looking at this first stage of a portrait that I’ve drawn.

Yes, you guessed it, the two key elements are:

1. Shape of face
2. Eyes

These are the two focal points we are built to analyze and recognize instantly. It’s part of our internal facial recognition software, which is programmed from birth.

It’s really worth spending as much time as you need to get these right. Start with the shape of the face and don’t move on to the eyes until the shape is spot on.

The eyes are more difficult, but one of the tricks is to make the pupil and the lashes really dark. That will make the eyes stand out and look real.

Now you’ve got the shape and eyes done, most of the rest of the face is about tone and shading.

And the last is to fill in the outer areas such as neck, shoulders and hair. And really work hard on making the darkest areas as dark as possible. Identity the darkest and lightest parts of the face and then work the rest of the face so that it sits between these two outer extremes of tone. It’s worth getting a range of pencils from H or HB up to 7B or 8B.

It’s these finishing touches that bring it to life and make it crisp.