Drawing Lesson 14, Part 1 – How to Draw a Man

How to Draw a Man – William Shakespeare Portrait

Video Lesson Description

In this video lesson you will discover How to Draw a Man on example of making a portrait of William Shakespeare.

How to Draw a Man Step by Step

When it comes to a question of How to Draw a Man, a fine artist must have adequate understanding and skills, which include such topics as:

– Understanding of a human anatomy;

– Strong drawing skills;

– A knowledge of drawing techniques;

– Experience in making constructive drawings;

– Understanding of tonal values;

– Shades rendering skills, an so on.

“How to Draw a Man” is a complex subject that includes numerous steps along the way. Here are some key points of how to draw a man and especially a portrait of a man:

1. When you consider how to draw a man, observe a model from various points of view and decide on the point to be used for drawing.

2. Choose your paper layout, either: vertical or horizontal for your “How to Draw Man” exercise.

3. Visualize the intended “How to Draw a Man” artwork and imagine it on the drawing surface.

4. In your “How to Draw a Man” practice, mark the overall mass of the head, indicate the top, bottom, left and right edges of the future portrait. Make sure you have sufficient lead room.

5. Continuing your “How to Draw a Man” topic, draw the central line of the face, depict the head turn, is it profile, three-quarter or frontal view.

6. Establish the two big masses of the head – the cranial mass and the face mass.

7. Mark the eye-line and depict the head point of view. Do you see it from above, below or straight on?

8. Establish proportions of the head and face. Where are the lines of eyebrows, base of the nose, the mouth and the roots of hairline?

9. Mark the position of the ears.

10. Depict the proportions of the neck and shoulders.

11. Mark the big masses of the hairstyle.

12. Draw approximated geometrical forms of smaller details like the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. You can indicate shaded areas by very light shading.

13. Fine-tune the contours of the head and face; draw facial features with more precision. The drawing process goes from common shapes and forms to smaller individual features. You can apply another layer of very light shading to help in establishing the three-dimensional nature of the head.

14. Continue rendering in graphite pencil – going from general forms to smaller details and from dark shadows to lighter mid-tones.

15. Apply shading gradually in multiple layers of hatching. When you do a “How to Draw a Man” lesson, remember that the head has spatial environment and establish it by rendering the background, as well.

16. Progress to the smaller details and deeper tonal values. Pay attention to the smaller details.

17. When the “How to Draw a Man” artwork is almost completed, turn your attention to the big masses once again. Work in the direction from small details to bigger areas to unify the drawing.

18. Check the drawing once again and fix any final things you see.

19. Make some artistic accents, which will attract the attention of the viewer to certain features or areas of drawing, be creative and manipulative in what you want to focus the viewer’s gaze on.

20. It is better to leave the artwork just before it is completely finished than overwork and spoil it.