How to draw faces as a beginner – my TOP TIPS
- Ayesha
- Sep 11, 2023
- 3 min read
Want to improve at drawing faces in a realistic style? Let me help you.
First let me introduce myself in case this is your first time meeting me.. My name is Ayesha and I’m an artist who specialises in realism portrait drawings. I’m self taught and I’ve been creating art consistently and running my business for 3+ years now (although I’ve loved drawing all my life!)
I’ve always had a fascination for drawing people. I just love bringing images to life and focusing on recreating the details which make humans unique. Despite what style you want to achieve with your portraiture art – whether it’s realism, surrealism, abstract etc, its always a good idea to have an understanding of the human face and how facial features are structured.
Here are my top tips on drawing faces, that I’ve picked up from my lifelong journey of drawing and improving my portrait drawings.
1 – Observe faces around you and sketch from what you see
When drawing portraits, it’s important to begin to train your brain to observe different faces and the details which make them unique. We all have different eyes, different noses, different mouths, etc. and it’s important to start paying more attention to how different faces are made up. The more you observe and sketch from real life situations, the more you start to understand and get familiar with how facial features relate to one another on a face, and how to translate what you see onto paper. At this stage, your drawings don’t have to be proportionally perfect, as the repetition of this exercise will help you gradually improve your proportions over time.
2 – Draw from references and then draw from memory
When drawing portraits, it’s often useful to use a reference. I use references for about 90% of my drawings and that’s okay. It is often much easier to recreate an image/some parts of different images when drawing a realism piece, than imagining it all from your head. However, when it comes to first learning how to construct different facial features, it’s an invaluable skill to learn how to draw these WITHOUT a reference. This way, it makes it much easier and quicker to draw faces whether you are using a reference for your portraits or not, as you will already have an understanding of how basic facial features are drawn. My recommendation would be to switch between drawing from a reference, and then drawing from memory. The more you do this, the more you’ll be able to draw facial features from memory.
3 – Learn from experienced artists
Watching other people draw, attending workshops and learning from those who are already creating the type of portraiture art you want to be making is a sure-fire way to improve your skills much quicker than solely teaching yourself. It’s easier to become demotivated, overwhelmed and distracted when trying to learn something by yourself, so make use of those out there that are more experienced than you and are willing to offer their guidance and help! After realising how beneficial this can be to one’s development, I developed my own tried and tested techniques and decided to launch my very own workshops in 2023! So, if you are reading this and feel like you would benefit from the guidance of a teacher to help you improve your portrait drawings – then you’re already in the right place!
4 - Get familiar with proportions and how facial features relate to one another
As well as understanding how to draw facial features, it’s important to get familiar with how these facial features relate to each other proportionally on a human face. There are general proportional rules that apply when drawing faces in a realistic true-to-life style. Learn and practice these. Keep drawing portraits and get use to drawing different types of faces. The more practice you get – the more comfortable you will get with proportions over time.
And that’s it! My top tips for drawing faces as a beginner.
Don’t forget to sign up to my workshop(s) now, so I can offer you my knowledge and experience, and help you level up your portraiture drawing skills!
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