Procedures For Pencil Portrait Sketching - Drawing Hairdos

Sketching hair is dictated by several factors: the type of hair, its tint, texture, quantity, the arrangement and styling of the hair, the character and mood of the model or the photo, and the light effect upon the hair.

The contour of the hair is part of the overall arabesque. A correct arabesque is critical to the likeness of the hair. Many novice artists start with the face and grow outward from there. This is however a poor approach and instills bad practices that will prove difficult to break.

In fact, the arabesque is especially essential when draw a coiffure. Attempting to sketch the hair working from the inside out, piece by piece, is a recipe for failure. The hair will end up in being either too small for the head or too large.

Working within the arabesque of the hairdo, first put in the main darks. These darks are best seen by squinting until an overall pattern of light and dark is observed.

Next, you need to blend the graphite in a painterly fashion following the overall gesture and motion of the coiffure. For this you can utilize your fingers, a tissue, or a paper stump. If you make use of a paper stump be careful not to deaden the look. If you use your fingers make sure they are dry and also wipe them constantly with a paper towel.

Then, make use of your putty eraser like a loaded paint brush to pick out the relevant lights. Do not be overly fussy here. A more virtuoso approach effects a sense of life and rhythm into the hair. If you make a mistake just stump down the graphite again with your fingers or stump and do it again.

Occasionally when you block-in the coiffure other light parts of the skull pop out. This is one rationale why sketching the head as a whole is necessary.

French braiding is a gorgeous coiffure style, but extremely complicated and hard to sketch. The purpose is to render these French braids fluidly and with motion. A balancing act is required here: the intricacy of the hair’s styling is best handled by first line-rendering the main locks and braids. As you lay out the braids make certain to plumb and carefully measure and establish each main lock and braid.

When sketching from a photograph there is the pull to duplicate it down to the smallest detail. You may or may not give in to this pull but you should always make sure that the hair retains its liveliness. However, in most cases, you will not need to sketch every detail.

Further block-in the darks taking into account the direction and motion of the relevant locks of the hair. The most difficult thing is to refrain from plunging into an area of detail. Not to do this demands mental discipline. Best is to follow a layered approach that progressively piles the arrangement of the hair, lock by lock.

You also should smooth the edges of the hair line so that it blends into the forehead and sides of the face. Hair does this naturally.

Be sure to used sharp pencils because dull pencils lead to dull, dead coiffures.

Having first mapped out and blocked-in the major locks of hair makes the rendering of the finer regions much easier, but is still labor intensive. You should be prepared to spend quite a lot of time on a hairdo.

Also, step back from the drawing to maintain an overview of the primary light/dark pattern because detailing can result in a flat chaos in which the tones close in on each other.

Hold back from rendering bangs too soon in the process. This helps ensure that the coiffure and flesh can be unified into a coherent sense of spirit.

Sketching coiffures so that it reads naturally and has a rhythmic gesture is difficult. Usually it takes as much time and effort to render the hair as it does the face and neck. You must spend as much care in preparing the coiffure as you would for the remainderof the portrait. If you draw from life be sure you do the hairdo before your model takes a break because the hair will very likely have changed when the break is over. The idea, then, is to devote a whole 20 to 30 minutes of a pose segment to the hair.

With these procedures you can be certain that in time your sketched hair will look authentic and energetic. Do not forget that drawing hair takes time so that you do not get irritated.

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Remi Engels is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter and practiced sketching teacher. See his work at graphite pencil portraits.

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