Learning to draw a portrait from a photo is better in black and white. Print the photo in black and white, it is advisable to print the photo in the size that you plan to make the drawing, but this is not necessary. After you have printed the photo, draw it into equal squares measuring 3x3 cm, try to draw with even parallel lines! Use a ruler.
Next, draw a sheet of paper or cardboard into squares of the same size, in case you want to draw a portrait of the same size as the original photo. If your format is larger (as in the photo), then draw the sheet into larger squares, for example 4x4 cm, but the number of squares must match. Next, number all the squares in the photo and on a blank sheet in the same order.
(to the first photo) We start to make a pencil sketch, here you will start using squares, do not try to redraw the whole picture in general. Look at each square as a separate picture and copy the main lines, the numbers will help you navigate the drawing.
It is best to work on a vertical inclined plane, for example, on an easel, but if this is not possible, then it is possible on a horizontal one, in which case try to move away from the drawing from time to time and look at it from afar, it is easier to see perspective errors.
At the sketch stage, you do not need to draw small details, pay attention to the main components of the drawing and copy them as accurately as possible. Work with an HB or 2HB medium hard pencil. Try not to stain the paper with numerous erasing of the pencil, then the paint will lie flat.
(to the second photo) Let's move on to working with paints. To work with acrylic, you do not need a lot of water, it is needed in the same amount as when working with gouache. Prepare brushes of different sizes, the wider the choice, the better, but even 2-3 brushes are enough. First, mark for yourself the darkest places and the lightest areas, paint over them, as shown in the figure. Next, start softening the transitions from white to black.
(to 3 photos) Carefully watch the change in hue in the photo and complement it, then work on the lips, eyes and nose with small brushes. Be patient, do not start drawing for more than an hour without a break. If you made a mistake and made the wrong stroke, then wait until the paint is completely dry and apply the desired layer on top, acrylic covers the previous tone well, even dark. When dry, acrylic remains the same color as when applied, it does not fade like gouache, keep this in mind when applying the tone. Do not overdo it with water otherwise the picture will “leak”. Acrylic washes off hands with water, but not very well, so try not to get too dirty.
Despite the rapid development of photography, fine art is still quite popular. It is extremely important to know how to draw this or that picture correctly. For example, a portrait with paints.
Many artists are familiar with the situation when a sketch created with a pencil looks just perfect. But when it comes to coloring the sketch, things don't go quite as planned.
How to learn to draw a portrait of a person with paints?
Many people who are passionate about fine arts are interested in how to paint a portrait with paints. If an important minus, which is that the strokes applied with a brush, then cannot be erased like pencil sketches. They only have to be covered up, which does not always look aesthetically pleasing, especially if a mistake is made on the face. Then just an ugly stain may remain.
So it is better to draw all the features of the portrait correctly initially. To begin with, it is proposed to use watercolor and special paper designed for the use of this paint. She pulls on the stretcher. Brushes are better to choose natural. For their manufacture, the wool of martens, ferrets and squirrels is used. You also need clean water and a sponge.
The first stage of drawing a portrait is creating a sketch
Drawing, as a rule, is carried out from a photo. It needs to be well studied. First, the shape that the head should have, the facial oval, is built. It is worth figuring out what distance will be from the chin to the crown and horizontally. Looking for midlines (eye and nose). The remaining outlines of the face are drawn. At this stage, you can not go into excessive detail, because this is just a sketch.
When it comes to the smallest details, special care should be taken so that the resemblance to the original is not lost. Looking at the drawing, an outsider should feel the person depicted. To catch all the vital details, you can squint. So when you look at the picture, you can see what was hidden from view at first. Then follows the imposition of shadows and highlights.
Lights and shadows
Now the moment will melt when you can start working with watercolor. How to draw a portrait with paints correctly? To begin with, all colors urinate, so that later the work goes faster. Previously created auxiliary lines are eliminated. A cardboard or plastic palette is being prepared. Shadows are laid first and those areas that should be dark. You can immediately see that the volume appears. Large strokes are carried out with a thick brush using a large amount of water. It is worth knowing that the watercolor will look a little lighter when it dries. The drawing should lose the created feeling of two-dimensionality as much as possible, become voluminous.
Applying color to a drawing
After that, the desired colors are selected. Watercolor is characterized by lightness and airiness. In the imposition of the first layers, it is better to use a large amount of water, so that the work will not look sloppy. Another interesting feature of this material is that white paint is not used here. This is another great reason to get it right the first time. The lightest elements, as a rule, are simply not painted over. There are special compounds that cover these areas so that later the paint does not fall on them. It is not necessary to use a large number of colors in the palette.
Watercolor has such features, thanks to which you can create a variety of shades, simply by applying different amounts of water. It is also important to know that the previous one must be completely dry before applying the next layer. In case of mistakes, you can quickly remove unnecessary strokes with a sponge. At each stage of creating a portrait, you need to look at the original and try to observe the maximum similarity. When the main colors are applied, thin lines are drawn, color accents are placed on those places that you especially want to highlight. It can be lips and eyes. If you follow the step-by-step technology, the drawing should turn out to be of high quality and neat.
Instruction
Make a sketch. If you are going to paint a portrait in watercolor, acrylic or gouache, you can draw a sketch with a simple pencil. Before working in color, the pencil lines will need to be made lighter with an eraser. If you prefer tempera or oil paints, you will have to start the painting with an underpainting. Make a sketch on a separate sheet, calculate the proportions of a person. Transfer these calculations to paper or canvas.
Make the underpainting for a tempera portrait with a shade of tempera, which is in all elements of the picture. The shade should be light, so that later it can be strengthened or covered. For underpainting it will be more convenient to do with acrylic paints. Mark the main shapes of the figure and apply a drop shadow.
The way you work in color depends on the paint you have chosen. If it is watercolor, diluted acrylic or gouache, you need to paint over the drawing with wide fills. Start with areas of the body that are not covered by clothing. Determine the lightest shade that is visible on the skin. Mix the same in the palette. Try to immediately mix in enough paint so that it is enough for the drawing and you do not have to re-select the combination of colors.
Then create a shade of shadows on the skin. With a wide brush, spread the first color over the pattern. When it dries a little, apply shadow patches. Pour the person's clothes in the same way. After that, paint the face using smaller brushes. Do not draw the face to the end, just apply the main shade and penumbra on the cheeks, temples, chin, next to the bridge of the nose.
Take thin brushes and draw all the penumbra and your own shadows on the torso and head of a person. At the same time, it is important not only to convey the shape of the body, but also to take into account the change in shades of both clothing and skin. They affect the coloring of each other, so on a red shirt, for example, the blue of the trousers will be noticeable in the shadows. And on the face there will be a warm reddish reflex from the shirt.
To make the drawing come alive, do not forget about the glare. They do not always appear on the skin, but on the hair and eyes it is imperative to leave an unpainted area of white paper.
When working with tempera, you will not have to create large fills, but work “from a piece”. That is, with small strokes, completely draw one area and only after that move on to the next. If you are painting a person with oil paints, pay attention to the degree of transparency of the shades that you are going to mix. This information is on the packaging of the paint. This is especially important when choosing a skin color - if you mix a transparent paint with a opaque, the color will turn out to be heavy, unnatural.
If you dream of learning how to paint a portrait in watercolor, then put aside all fears and doubts and, using this step-by-step drawing lesson for beginners, boldly take the first steps towards the realization of this dream. Available recommendations with step-by-step photos will help you easily learn the basics of drawing a portrait of a girl with watercolors.
Tools and materials
To paint a portrait in watercolor, you will need the following materials:
- watercolor paper;
- pencil;
- eraser;
- watercolor;
- brushes with a thickness from one to four (it is advisable to exclude the use of synthetic materials and give preference to natural ones: squirrel, pony);
- a glass of water;
- palette
How to Paint a Portrait in Watercolor: A Step by Step Guide
1. First you need to build a face with a pencil on paper. For convenience, it is best to take a photo from which to paint a portrait. In order to correctly perform the construction, it is necessary to measure the angle of inclination of the head, the height and width of the head, the ratio of the parts of the face in relation to each other.
When building, it is necessary to monitor the pressure of the pencil - the lines should be light, non-greasy. After the portrait is completed with a pencil, you should erase all the auxiliary lines that were used to build the face, leaving only the main lines - the outline of the eyes, nose, lips, hair, face oval.
2. The next stage of work will be the watercolor application of the initial "framework" of the color component of the portrait. First of all, it is necessary to register the darkest, as well as prominent places in the portrait to obtain volume, but you should not get carried away with any particular area of the face, you need to register the entire portrait with a thin layer of watercolor.
Advice! To apply large-scale shadows, you can use brushes numbered 2 and 3, for drawing small details (eyes, lips) it is better to take thin brushes - numbers 1 and 2.
At this stage of the development of the drawing, it is good to use the technique of applying spots, to register the entire portrait with local colors. To better see which shade you need to apply to a particular area of the face, you can slightly squint your eyes.
In this process of work, you can not blur the contours of the shadows, but you need to be careful not to darken the bright parts of the portrait. The first layer of watercolor should be thin. Watercolor must be well diluted with water.
3. After the first layer dries, you can do a more detailed drawing: apply a light layer of the background (brush number 4 is suitable for this) and fill in watercolor all the white places in the picture (hair, clothes).
Important! The final detailing is still far away, however, at this stage of work, watercolor should be applied more accurately and jewelryly than at the beginning of work.
Prescribing dark places, it is necessary to slightly blur the edges between the color spots with a damp brush, forming them into a single soft shade. This procedure is necessary to achieve a realistic image. For this study, a brush number 2 is suitable.
On a note! It is worth knowing an important rule that you should not prescribe dark places with pure black.
It may seem that black dominates in the darkest place, but you should not use this color in its pure form without first mixing it with another.
To understand what color you need to mix black with, you need to look at the photo, squinting your eyes. Also, so that this color is not too active, you can prescribe it in a thin layer, and cover it with another color on top.
4. The technique of writing in watercolor is a technique for gradually darkening a drawing by superimposing layers on top of each other. But it is worth remembering that a watercolor portrait should first of all be “airy”, so the main thing is not to get carried away in overlaying layers. The final detailing (drawing the eyes, mouth, hair) must be done at the end of the workflow.
Before the final detailing, for the effect of realism, you can slightly blur the edges of the contours of the face (eyebrows, lips) with a wet brush. The same technique is good to use for drawing hair, so that they look more realistic. The background can also be worked out at the final stage of writing a portrait.
Advice! In order for the background to turn out with a smooth transition (from dark to light), you should make a tonal stretch. To do this, you need to dilute the paint well with water.
Artist Victoria Lemtyugova shared artistic secrets on how to paint a portrait in watercolor with the readers of the Wings of Inspiration project.
If you want to start with a simpler option, then by all means take a look. Here you will also find many different characters of popular cartoons.
Don't be afraid to draw! It's not that hard to make this dream come true!
Thinking about an inexpensive but creative gift? I have a solution for this problem. I suggest you make a watercolor portrait with your own hands. Don't be afraid, it's not difficult, you just need to try a little.
Those who have already read my previous article on pastel portraits are already familiar with the grid drawing method. In this lesson, I will continue to talk about this technique further. The essence of this method is to draw an image by cells.
First we create a grid on top of the image. I use Photoshop for this purpose, but other image editors will do. Photo taken from Facebook. Any photo will do, even low quality.
After turning on the grid in the program, draw it on paper. The size of my cells is 0.5 * 0.5 centimeters.
Having drawn the grid, you can start sketching with a pencil. Concentrate your attention only on a single cell. The most important thing is to keep the proportions. The grid helps you draw even the most complex face elements. By connecting the lines in the cells, we easily get, for example, an ear.
I really like this drawing technique, as I often draw friends and family members. In my drawings, I always focus on the eyes, because it is the look of people that is best remembered.
You've probably figured out by now that a grid makes it easier to maintain proportions.
Surely you have a question. Is it possible to draw a photo in a different way? Yes. Use carbon paper. However, you will need a printed photo. Place carbon paper between plain paper and photograph. Then circle on the photo all the contours that will be copied onto paper.
Now it's time to ink the rough lines of your image.
I used a black fountain pen, the ink of which does not get wet when liquid gets on it. You don't have to use the same pen, as long as the ink is waterproof.
We outline only the contours with a pen. We will then paint over the dark areas with watercolors.
Here is what you should have at this stage.
When the ink dries, we begin to erase the cells.
Now you can start painting with watercolors. For convenience, remove the grid from the original photo. This way you can see the colors more clearly. It is very convenient to work with watercolor, as it is possible to mix different paints. The most important rule when painting with watercolors is to start with the light areas of the image. If anything, then you can make the color darker at any time, but vice versa will not work.
I suggest painting the dark areas last. So you are less likely to mix dark shades with light ones. However, wait until the light colors are completely dry before proceeding to the black ones.
You should get something similar. I really like those blue eyes.
If you have any questions about this lesson, write questions in the comments. I wish you success! Remember Mother's Day is right around the corner. Your mom will definitely love this handmade portrait.
