Portraits
I used graphite, colored pencil, watercolor, or acrylics for human portraits. God just used dust.
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:7 KJV
Steps in drawing a colored pencil portrait
1. Begin with a good sharp photo and crop only what you want in the artwork.
2. Prepare the reference photo. I used Photoshop Elements to remove the background and crop the face and shoulders. I printed the reference photo the same size as I wanted the finished drawing to be.
3. Draw a vertical line right through the center of the eye on the reference photo and drawing paper in the same place.
4. Draw the center horizontal line on the reference photo and drawing paper in same place. Measure accurately!
5. Use a proportional divider to measure where all the features are in comparison to vertical and horizontal reference lines.
6. Lightly draw in all the reference points of eyes, mouth, nose, hair, jaw line, etc.
7. Use very, very light strokes to begin filling in with colors, aware of the shadows, shapes, angles, sizes, lines, etc.
8. Use very light pressure, barely touching the surface to fill in colors, using many layers of various colors, mixing various colors on top of the other, for shaping and shading, changing directions of strokes.
Realism takes patience and time. Just get in the zone and enjoy.
It took about two days to draw.
Click the photos below to enlarge and read the drawing instructions.
Just follow the arrow that appears in the enlarged window to go to the next photo.