Drawing Lesson 5, Part 1 – How to Draw a Head

How to Draw a Head

Video Lesson Description

In this video series, you will discover how to draw a head. In five video parts you will get in-depth information of the following subjects:

• How to Draw a Head,
• What proportions and anatomical features of human head are and how to use them in a portrait drawing,
• How to draw eyes,
• How to draw a nose,
• How to draw a mouth,
• How to draw ears, etc.

How to Draw a Head – Front and Side Views

In this video part, I will do a couple of quick sketches so you will see how to draw a head. I will also explain the main proportions of a human head and the rules you’ll need to know to draw a head realistically.

The first “How to draw a head” sketch depicts a full-face male portrait. The video explains how to use central virtual line, lines of eyes, base of the nose, mouth and eyebrows and what proportions human head has.

You will also discover how to draw a head skilfully by measuring and applying proportion of human face. This will help you to draw believable and realistic portraits.

There are certain rules that every fine artist must know and use when it comes to a subject of how to draw a head. For example, the half-width of the head fits three times into the head’s height; so the full width of the head is two-thirds of the total height. This is the classic ratio between the head’s width and height.

When you are considering how to draw a head, you also need to know that horizontal eye-line divides the height of the head exactly in the middle.

The shapes of the upper and lower eyelids are not symmetrical. Note how the upmost point of the upper eyelid contour is closer to the inner corner of the eye, while the lowest point of the lower eyelid is closer to the outer eye corner. This needs to be depicted in your how to draw a head practice.

According to the classic ideal of human face proportions, the width of the nose wings is equal to the length of an eye, which is in turn equal to the distance between the eyes.

There are other proportions you need to know when considering how to draw a head. The distance between the bottom of the chin and the base of the nose is equal to the distance between the base of the nose and the eyebrow-line, and is also equal to the distance between the eyebrow-line and the hair root line.

Imagine that the upper and lower teeth and lips are forming a horizontal “barrel” shape. The length of this barrel is equal to the distance between the pupils of the eyes.

The iris of an eye is usually positioned so its upper edge is slightly covered by the upper eyelid, while there is a small gap between the iris’ lower edge and the lower eyelid.

One more rule you need to observe when drawing a head is the location of the ears. The horizontal line of the eyebrow indicates the upper edge of an ear, while the horizontal line of the nose base supports the lower ear’s edge.