How to Easily Sketch a Portrait | A Beginners Guide

hey guys welcome back my name is Braden and I'm an artist so I'm going to be taking you through and showing you how you can very easily use the Loomis method the asro method and the Riley method all in tandem with each other so that you can sketch out a rock solid portrait we're going to be using this reference photo right here I chose this reference photo because I liked how it was a straight on angle so there'll be some challenges with how we draw our Circle and cut off our side planes but I'll show you how to navigate that and then just the overall detail of this reference photo I feel like we can work with our shading lower our values and I'll show you guys how to save your high values as well so I will say that if you find yourself enjoying this class then I know for a fact that you would thoroughly enjoy MySQL Shear offering on skillshare I have entire courses built out for how to do exactly what this video is all about all right so if that's something that you think you would be interested in I got a link in the description of this video so you can sign up and try it out now what to expect with this one I'm going to be taking you through and I'm going to be showing you how you can very easily establish this Portrait by using the Loomis method so I'm going to be showing you how you can draw a circle I'm going to be explaining how you can split that Circle up into three different sections from there I'm going to show you how you can systematically start to develop your portrait using colored pencil once we have it set up I'm going to start to show you how you can identify different planes that we are going to borrow from the asaro method or the forehead I'm going to show you how you can start to build out the nose using nothing but planes from the sorrow method as well and then once we have all of that established and we've built up some of our lower values and we've started to move past two-dimensional shape and we've started to build that illusion of that third dimension I'm going to show you how you can use Rhythm lines from the Riley method to really start to understand how the face flows once we have all three of those methods Incorporated the rest of it's pretty much going to be building values and bringing out those features and solidifying the overall look of our sketch so that it looks like the reference photo that's pretty much it so before we start make sure that you like subscribe and then turn on all those notifications so that you never miss when my latest and greatest videos hit the channel here at Messer Creations alright let's get drawn [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so normally I'll use a compass but I've been practicing my circles manually so something interesting about drawing circles it's a lot harder than it looks but you just start in you square up your shoulders straighten your back and you actually don't move your wrist at all it's all in your elbow and then once you have your circle what we're going to do is because this gentleman is looking directly at us we're going to establish our side planes so I like to draw one first and then I Mark the top and the bottom of the plane and then I bring that over roughly just like this somewhere right in there and because the head is somewhat at an angle I'm just going to cut it off here and then right about here the top of the oval this signifies roughly where the hairline would be in this case he has a headdress on so that'll be the marker for that and then in the center we're going to pull over our brow line and then roughly at the bottom of the side plane is going to be where the nose is so this is a little trick you can take your pencil and you can just roughly kind of Mark the spacing for it to identify where the bottom of the chin will be okay so something just like that now we have the basis for our features right and so we're not worried about details this step we want to make sure that our proportions are in line with where they need to be so what I'm doing is I'm just going to go through and I'm just in a very roughly identify kind of the main Folds in his headdress here so just very just very roughly and notice I am using what they call the overhand technique so this is how they teach in art institutions to draw it's really up to you you can use the overhand technique like I am or if you feel more comfortable with the three-point technique that is how they teach you to write in school either or will do the one thing I will say about the overhand technique is that it does allow for a little bit more control and it forces you to use a lighter pressure control because of the very nature of how you're holding the pencil okay so once we have that roughly established what I like to do is I like to identify more or less where the ear sits on the side of the head because once I have the ear identified then I can roughly place the nose and then the eyes and so on and so forth but notice how I'm just kind of taking this pulling my pencil over right roughly in line with where the bottom of the nose will be on this sketch see now I've switched from the overhand method to the three-point method it's really up to you there is no rule saying that you have to do it this way or that way it's personal preference and you'll find as you go through your sketch the overhand method might be more comfortable then three-point and vice versa just really depends on what you're doing I find that for the initial parts of the sketch when I'm drawing out the basic shape of the head the eyebrows the ears the features that I prefer to use the overhead method like this right but then when I'm going in for detail work like say around the eyes then I'll switch it to the three point method and all draw the eyes but then here what I'm doing is this is pretty much the beginnings of the brow and we're using that initial line that we drew for roughly where our eyebrows will be right if you look at the reference photo you can see that shadow just above his eyes that goes all the way over that is what we're establishing right here okay there's different ways to do this but I find that if you go slow and you do a couple planes at a time it tends to be a little bit more digestible for people yeah something just like this and then of course if you subscribe to the asaro method these are the asaro planes when it comes to sketching portraits like this there's pretty much three main methods that you can use um one is the first one that I showed you where we drew the circle identified our side planes used the rule of thirds for the features of the face that's called the Loomis method and then the asaro method is the planes of the face John asaro back in the mid 70s published some works on his method for identifying the planes of the face which at the time was directed more towards painters and such but all visual artists even cartoonists can use the asaro method for their work but then here what I'm doing is I'm establishing the planes of the nose okay and this is following the asaro method the thing that I'll say about using a sorrow over just drawing it yourself is that it forces you when you're looking at your reference photos such as this to look at it and then see the planes of that specific individual when you're drawing them okay and the planes of the face are meant to be principal basis for shadow right and for the illusion of that third dimension right but when you initially put the planes down it's not going to look realistic but that's not really the point as you can see that top plane is going to have a lighter value because of the way that the light is casting across the reference photo yeah and then here what we can do we can use the bottom of the bridge of the nose to establish the bottom of the eye sockets and now this gentleman has a mustache so it looks like we're going to use roughly just to the left of the center of the eye socket right just like this this is what they call a reference point we're using that reference point pulling down on both sides here and this is how we're going to get a proportional mustache to the face something just like this notice for this part of the sketch I am using an extremely light pressure control because with colored pencil you don't really have any recourse if you go too dark right if you go in too heavy-handed that value is going to be too low and there's not going to be any way to retrieve it through the use of eraser work so just be aware of that and then what I like to do is I like to practice my circles so we're just going to do some nice light circles here for the eyeballs and then right about here looking at the reference photo this is going to be the outside corner of this eyeball and then right here is going to be the inside corner and then same on this side inside corner outside corner roughly in line with the outside of the mustache go up and just mark it okay now once you have that marked you can take your pencil and like I said like I just switched from the overhand to the three point because I have a little bit more control of the three point and I'm just going to very lightly start pulling this line over I'm going to start from the corner I'm going to go up and then over and then I'm going to connect the other outside corner of the other eye it's real light just like that and what this does is this gives me a nice beginning for that top eyelid on the eye and now I can go from the inside corner and attach it just like that just like this something [Music] perfect all right and then of course we have the eyelid so we wanna pencil in the eyelid here and the biggest thing with eyes is just take your time go nice and slow and one thing I will say is notice notice this look at this technique here notice how I'm just lightly pulling and then I'm going back and pulling again and going back and pulling again and I'm slowly extending that line out that is what I would recommend for drawing the eyes versus doing really long poles as you build confidence in sketching like this you will notice that you will start doing longer and longer poles and your line work will become more solidified more easily but that comes with practice and then here I got this other eyelid drawn in and then here let's start shading just ever so slightly the cool thing with these colored pencils is that you can start sketching immediately right it's not like charcoal where you have to kind of go in and then you gotta blend it and you know smudge it and you know work on getting that gradation colored pencils such as this you can just go nice and light over and over again and you can go in tight little circles like what I'm doing or if you want to if you want to go for a slightly different aesthetic you can actually just hatch in your lower values if you will or you can cross hatch it's really up to you you don't have to do it exactly like me every artist is different that's what makes art so beautiful right subjective Beauty it's really up to you but now what I'm doing is I'm looking at the reference photo and I am slowly building up those lower values now I'm still using a nice slight pressure control here because I can always go back over those lower value spots and I can lower them even more and especially if you're not too confident in building those lower values then the lighter the pressure control the better and like I was mentioning with the line work as you do this more and more and you build up that confidence you build up that muscle memory you'll be able to start using heavier pressure controls earlier in your drawings right then here what I'm doing is I'm just building up this line work here now for line definitions I don't want to get too academic but I do want you to understand the basics of them especially if you're not aware these lines are essentially defined lines because I've just defined them but defined Lines by definition are when you continue aligned without any break and then typically they have a mid to heavy line weight right now what is line weight well line weight is the strength of the line so when you draw on the paper is it light right is it dark you know the darker the line the heavier the weight the lighter the line the lighter the way right those are line definitions so when if you ever hear someone talk about Line work right now you have a basis to to understand implied lines are kind of the opposite of that they're they're when you continue a line after a small break and then that line proceeds in the same direction so in my charcoal step-by-step drawing tutorials I teach the three layered method which is where I layer values to form a line with a very light line weight so implied lines are more the difference in contrast right between high and low like say for example right here where I'm drawing in the gentleman's cheekbone and his jawline right I'm going in and I'm more or less focusing more on the value of that section of his face than anything and because there's differences in values especially because this is an edge that we are working with it looks softer but you can still see the difference you can see that the cheek is clearly closer than the ear is so [Music] and then of course there's line quality now line quality is the thickness or the thinness of a line and by varying Alliance quality you can bring out the illusion of three-dimensional form right because on paper all it ever will exist in is two-dimensional space now technically the paper itself is 3D but the image on the surface of the paper never will be right so by understanding and using the differences in different line weights different line qualities different types of lines whether they're defined or implied you can drop a pencil you can um you can really start to play with the illusion of that three-dimensional form which of course is what separates you know amateur artists from really good artists right is understanding all of those key components of drawing and draftsmanship now what we're doing here is I'm building up the form on the bottom of the nose but then I also want to go in and I want to start to bring out the overall shape of my references face right starting from his cheekbones to his jaw now here what I'm going to do is realistically and you can do this either way a lot of artists established the job before they ever establish the mouth because this is just a sketch and trust me if you want to elevate your drawings you will be sketching a lot in order to build substantial muscle memory you have to do something on average everyone's genetics are slightly different a repetition count of anywhere from three thousand to five thousand repetitions before you build that muscle memory and can perform an act subconsciously without much thought at all and B of a higher quality right so what does that mean well whether we're working out or we're learning to draw you are going to be drawing a lot so try different things like try drawing the mouth first and you can use the nose as an anchor point for where should the mustache begin right like I did you know once the mustache is drawn in then well where does that upper lip sit and so on and so forth all the way down to the edge of the jaw and then once you have that established you can connect the chin to the corners of the jaw and up to the cheekbones the biggest thing is to just have fun with it try different things there's so much to learn in the wake of drawing and then of course drawing specific subjects like portraiture it's it's its own book but what I'm doing here is I'm just going through and I'm not I'm not focusing too much on the details what I'm really going for here is I just I want to bring out that that structure of the mustache of the hairs right because it's just a simple sketch in colored pencil obviously it doesn't have to be super realistic I am more or less going because this is just a quick sketch I'm going more for that basic shape [Music] all right [Music] now here what I'm doing is I've switched to the overhand and I am punching in the upper lip okay now with lips I will say that less is more a lot of times if you put too much detail into a lip and you really try to use a defined line to establish the edge of the lower lip it makes it look very cartoony and not necessarily realistic instead of focusing on line work for say the lower lip in this case I want you to focus on the low value immediately under lower lip instead and what you'll find is when you start focusing on just building up the value through hatching that all of a sudden that lower lip starts to protrude out it right it starts to come into Focus so give that a try and let me know how that goes but now we're starting to get a much better idea of where that jaw lives and then because I don't want a floating head what I'm going to do is I'm going to quickly sketch in the collar of the shirt and then his shoulders something like this you always want to at least put the neck on a portrait otherwise it's just this floating head out in space all by itself right okay so now I think it's time let's let's work on this this headdress a little a little bit more now When approaching a reference such as this what I'm doing is I'm focusing on the main Folds [Music] the main folds or the material is right where it folds into itself it's very easy to get sucked into like all the little nuances of the lower values with how the material is folded on his head but the way that I approach it especially when I'm just doing a quick sketch is I just try to identify those main sections which is actually how I also approach hair you want to get the basic shape of the hair down before you start going in lowering value and then focusing on individual strands of hair okay just pulling this up what this is doing is this is helping us with the overall structure of the sketch and making sure that it is proportional to the reference in question foreign so what I'm doing now is these are what they call Rhythm lines okay Rhythm lines are mainly from the Riley method now the Riley method has a lot of structure to a face through the use of Rhythm lines such as this basically this tutorial you've learned a little bit about the Loomis method for establishing the basic structure of the head and then you learned a little bit about the asaro planes right so like the way we planed out the forehead the way we established the nose that was the asaro method and now you're seeing how we establish Rhythm lines which we are borrowing from the Riley method so it's essentially a fusion of all three methods now when you actually study portrait artists every artist is a little different most portrait artists will lean into the Loomis method when they begin to draw um I will say that the asaro method has a lot of planes and depending exactly on what the portrait study is you might want to use those planes you might not I find that it's easier and more digestible if you use just a little bit from each method as you progress through your sketch you know because at the end of the day all three of those methods are meant to be guides right John asaro famously said that his method was meant to be a guide for young artists but that they had to ultimately find their own path right because of that subjectivism you can start but in a lot of things especially artists not necessarily how you start but it's how you finish so just keep that in mind no what we're doing here is I'm starting to go through them and I want to start to bring out some of the character of this reference photo character can be brought out obviously through features but more so than features through detail now this specific tutorial is going to show you how you can start to build up these lower values and by building up lower values effectively what is happening is that you are giving your sketch that realistic Factor right you're starting to really hone in on exactly what makes this reference the reference [Music] okay I just like this basically what I'm doing is I'm looking at the reference photo and anywhere where there are low values so let's say for example there's this skin fold here and then remember how earlier I was talking about when it comes to that lower lip just focus on the low values of the reference photo the reason why you want to do it that way is because when you focus just on the low values all of a sudden those mid tones and those higher values they start to kind of take care of themselves now if we were using graphite or if we were using the charcoal medium we have the ability to go in with an eraser and do what they call retrieve those High values right and their race and lighten up some of those lower values but because we're using a colored pencil with this one we have to be conscious of the fact that we can't do that right so what we're doing by definition is what they call saving those High values which is the exact opposite of retrieving when you save a high value there is no need to retrieve because you are not lowering that value to begin with but just like this I'm just doing nice tight little circles that I'm going through and I'm making sure that when I am lowering the value that I am also pulling my pencil in the right direction the way that underlying form flows in the reference photo but just like this notice how I'm just I'm lowering the value more and more only in places where that low value needs to be lowered right and of course what this does is this helps build up the underlying form and it brings out contrast right between the low values the mid-tones and then the highest values that's kind of a cool little trick you can kind of pull the pencil very lightly over the top of the nose and it kind of brings out some form and then here what I'm doing is I'm going to go in because there's no real light hitting this ear I'm just going to kind of lower it and then eventually I'll go in and I'll put in detail work right but with sketching like this obviously we want our sketch to look like the reference photo but one of the biggest problems with young artists that want to become portrait artists is that they think that if they don't get the portrait to look picture perfect that it's a failure and that is inaccurate if you listen to Eckhart Tolle he talks about how failure does not exist only to the egotistical right your egos what is afraid of failing but the action of drawing you know the action of doing anything is just that you are doing it and that is a win in and of itself but here what I'm doing now so I just kind of want to get a nice light Foundation notice the direction that I'm pulling my pencil across the paper right only certain areas of the reference photo are the highest value right completely white most of this sketch is going to have at least some form of mid-tone value to it so then here on the lip I can kind of give it a little bit of detail nothing too crazy there's a lot of texture on these lips so we can kind of punch in that texture where it is needed and then here what I'm doing is I'm just going to go through and I'm going to add some different line qualities to the mustache and this will lend itself well in our sketch to giving it a little bit of body right a little bit of form almost like that mustache is resting on top of the individual's face right that's what we want and this is what I was talking about with very different line qualities right some of these lines are super thin others are a little bit thicker and then of course the weights I'm changing the weight some are very very light and some are heavier remember the darker the line the heavier the weight the lighter the line the lighter the weight so and then of course here this is where we have a pretty decent Shadow so we're just going to go in and we're going to start to lower this value and play around with your different pressure controls too while you're drawing and lowering the values here you know you press a little harder that value will lower even faster or you can do like what I was recommending before or you just go over the same spot over and over again and what you'll find is you'll get a very very soft gradation right and that value will slowly lower more and more and you'll have a very nice smooth aesthetic on your paper so obviously this is just a you know quick 30 minute sketch but I'm going to be doing more of these I think that these are necessary and I think they're a lot of fun they're a lot of fun most of the time I'm doing my three layered method tutorials where we're drawing whales and Eagles and all sorts of crazy stuff but um for portrait Drive never really touched on that with you guys in tutorial forms so this is kind of that that next step there is a ton to learn but I'll teach you and we'll go slow we'll take our time all right something just like this and this is the cool thing about sketching is when you go into a sketch and you're not looking for Perfection but rather you are looking to learn different things there are so many aspects of a portrait that make it a portrait it's it's very hard to digest all of it once right you want to break it off into manageable bite-sized pieces so that you can take it in understand it and then move on to the next thing that you need to take in and understand but notice how by going in nice and soft I can lower the value and I can smooth it out and I can bring out a really nice form of gradation with my values and then here what I'm doing I'm not going to get too intense with this headdress I could probably spend another half hour just on bringing out every last little crease and Detail in this alone but what I'm going to do here is it looks like there's some kind of design here so yeah we're just gonna bring out this pattern that we see with three three little hashes here three little hatches there why not and that way we can give this headdress some character just like this and just be conscious of where you're pulling right in which direction you want to put those three hatches because that will also showcase to the viewer okay like that that is the direction that this material is laying I see you know it's subtle little tricks that you can do like that because of course we're playing in the world of Optics and optical illusion right we want to make something look like it's folded even though technically there's nothing there right we talked about two-dimensional Space versus three-dimensional space but your drawing is only ever going to exist in two-dimensional space but it's your job to convey and fool your viewer's eye that this is actually three-dimensional right that they could reach out and touch it the illusion of volume the illusional form you know that's what's fun when you're able to accomplish that visually and make your drawing visually appealing that's what makes art art okay this is looking pretty good I mean obviously I could spend hours dressing this up and adding details and more shading and more of this and more of that to make it look ever more like the reference photo but I think you know for a 30 minute sketch we did pretty well so if you enjoyed this video I wanted to let you know that I am on skillshare I have entire courses dedicated to the fundamentals of drawing portraits right I'll have a link to my skillshare in the description of the video so that if you want to sign up and give it a go you can do that I would also greatly appreciate your support on patreon I do offer monthly drawing consultations I'll have the link to my patreon in the description of this video as well and that is pretty much that stay happy stay healthy and remember never stop drawing

Channel: Messer Creations

Views: 3,077

Keywords: how to draw, drawing tutorial, drawing lessons, how to draw easy, how to sketch, messer creations, drawing tips, drawing made easy, charcoal drawing, how to use charcoal pencils, charcoal pencil, graphite drawing, drawing setup, loomis method, loomis method drawing heads, loomis head, loomis method app, reilly method, asaro method, loomis method drawing portraits, how to draw loomis method, step by step drawing tutorial, portrait drawing, how to easily draw head

Id: gaDHs0iCRgA

Length: 40min 13sec (2413 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023