Drawing portraits?

Question

Is there a good tutorial online or a book I can check out of the library about drawing human portraits? I'm not good at drawing realistically but I want to learn. What do you recommend? Thanks

Answer 1

I recommend learning to draw, period. Practicing every day. Portraits are probably the hardest thing there is to draw, so starting with them could be very discouraging. My advice always is to get a sketchbook (any cheap book will do) and draw, draw, draw. Once you get good at drawing--and that takes a lot of work, a lot of time, you can draw pretty-much anything.
Whether or not your local library has the books you want--I don't know. I suggest dropping by and looking under drawing and then portraits (or ask the librarian). I know of no freebies online on portrait drawing.
If you like to draw, the only challenge then is, Do you want to draw really well bad enough to work at it until you do?

Answer 2

If you wish to learn to draw an ideal image all that's necessary is time and Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery guide from here https://tr.im/mvl3m to be in the proper path.
The classes from Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery guide include 208 pages and a complete of 605 illustrations.  The fundamental strategy used is that you begin with a picture, pull a mild outline of the feature, and then tone it in.
Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery is the right allied to help make the great draw.

Answer 3

Well
A very good site that teaches how to draw realistic pencil portraits is http://pencilportraits.toptips.org

I have searched so many sites on the internet for so many years (wasting my time really) to try and better my drawing/sketching style but have never succeeded getting pasted the flat 2D outcome; that is until I tried using some special methods I found on http://pencilportraits.toptips.org. This is exactly what I have been searching for and with time on my hands I have the outcome I have always wanted. I bought this online course. I strongly recommend it.
Cheers ;)

Answer 4

There are a couple good books, but this one rocks. Drawing on the right side of the brain is a great book, but you may have trouble finding it. I suggest looking at the used book store, or on ebay. This is for drawing in general, because it teaches you to use the artistic right side of the brain, rather than the logical left. There are several things like- drawing pictures upside-down, crunching up a piece of paper and trying to draw it, and other techniques. After i used this book, i realized that drawing was a lot like meditation. This book is also fun. Once your left brain turns off, you experience several moments of joy (its odd) then nothing. This is a good book for anyone that want's to draw anything.

Answer 5

I'm an ART ED student in college and we spend a good bit of time talking about the merits of the grid method. it comes down to what you want to take away from your art experience. the idea behind the grid method is that it lets to break down a complex form into smaller more manageable modules but you're still doing essentially the same thing, you learn to create and proportion each square in the grid so it aligns with those around it, those are the same skills you need to take true portrait drawing. so long as you're learning those skills and realizing the proportions and how shadow works to define the shapes I don't see a problem with it, you're still learning and growing as an artist after all and isn't that the whole point of creating artwork.

Answer 6

There is a good book out there, but I'm not sure if it's in the library. The book was the assigned text for my figure drawing class. Sorry, I don't recall anything specific about title, author, etc, but maybe you could add the term 'figure drawing' to your bank of search words if it's not in it already. Good luck!

Answer 7

I would advise on getting "The Natural Way To Draw" by Kimon Nicolaides published by Houghton Mifflin Company. I have read many books and have found this to be the best. There are exercises and it covers different aspects.

Answer 8

George B. Bridgeman has some very good books on drawing people, and you can get either individual books on specific things or the whole collection in one book.

Answer 9

I found a tutorial here at http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/index.html . The site even shows several recommended books to purchase.