Drawing Perfectly?

Question

I use drawing pencils or a pen. When I try to draw people I cannot draw them as they look like—they end up looking like someone else. How can I improve my drawing to be what the person actually looks like?

Answer 1

I have learned to look for what makes that person look like that person.

It's funny how just a pencil line turned one way or the other can make a likeness.

If you are drawing based on photographs, it helps to turn both your reference photo and your drawing paper sideways and work on it, then turn them both completely upside down and work on it some more (it tricks your brain into just seeing the shapes and shadows)...when you turn it all right side up, you'll be surprised at how much more of a likeness you have.

But overall, look for what special thing makes that person look like themselves...is it the warmth of their eyes, the curve of their smile, the shape of their teeth, the location of their dimples?
It's often not just one thing, but it helps to narrow it down.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Consider two things...

1. Most people will never be "perfect" at what they do, unless what they do is incredibly simple. Mastering the art of blinking probably isn't impossible... but drawing people accurately is a skill that takes much time and practice to become great at.

So, please aim for "excellence", not "perfection". I know what you mean, but it's important to realize that becoming perfect at such a difficult task may not be realistic. I hate to put it that way, but I don't know how else to put it.


2. Often, when drawing from real life, we can become bogged down in art theory and our own ideas. Maybe you know what I mean: You start to draw a person's face. Then you think, "Oh, it's supposed to have correct proportions. And the eyes should be a certain size. And I know she has black hair, so I'm just going to fill it in." Or, "This is what I know an ear, or an eye, or a nose, looks like, so I'm just going to draw it."

Since real people are unique, they don't necessarily conform to our perceptions of what people "should" look like. The solution is to discard (for the moment, at least) our preconceived notions about art and simply DRAW WHAT WE SEE. It sounds like foolish advice, but it actually works. Forget what you know about drawing and act as if you have no idea what the person looks like, even if you've seen them a million times before. Let your hand record what your eyes actually see, whether or not your brain agrees with it.


I hope my advice was not too harsh or taken the wrong way... it's difficult to convey emotion and subtle things with a keyboard. Keep drawing.

God bless.

Answer 3

Blah blah blab!!!
Dude I always draw. If I start having trouble, just trace the picture. It's that simple!!!
1. Print out your picture if you don't have one on hand.
2. Go to a window, trace the outline of the picture VERY LIGHTLY. Draw everything including the outline of the shadows and stuff, but don't do any shading just yet.
3. After tracing, shade it in using pencil, or colour it in.
4. Erase any unwanted lines.
There is nothing wrong with tracing unless you just leave it with just lines so it looks obvious that it's just traced.

Also, if you want to draw onto A3 size.
1. Draw even lines diagonally and horizontally across your picture(the one you are copying) so it looks like lots of boxes.
2. With your A3 paper do the same thing, draw exactly the same amount of lines accross your page. This will help you get more accuracy as to where every feature goes.

Answer 4

make sure to keep scanning and comparing. compare the size of one thing to another. how big is the eye compared to the other? how big is the nose compared to the mouth? If you drop a vertical line downfrom the corner of the eye where does it fall on the mouth /chin etc... The more you compare one part of the image to another the more accurate you will be with that image.

Answer 5

you should first draw the schemes then the symmetries axles