For those who intend to do commercial portraiture the good news is that children’s portraits can be lucrative. There are very few artists who can competently render children.

Soft lighting works best for portraits of children. The child could be looking toward a bright light source. This sort of light source will illuminate the child’s face and create an introspective facial expression. The value stretch or range goes from light to medium with the eyes really dark.

Addressing the facial proportions of children in a general sense is somewhat of a waste of time. Their facial proportions change dramatically within a six month time span.

Suffice it to say that the younger the child is the smaller the face in relation to the skull. The eyes also appear larger although this can be deceiving. A child’s nose can be a nightmare to draw – there is nothing really to latch onto. And the mouth is extremely delicate and sensitive not to mention its constant motion if you draw from life.

If you do want to list some general proportions you can say that whereas an adult face is about half the size of the frontal skull side, a child’s face is about one-third of that size. Also, observe how small an infant’s neck is compared to the size of the head.

At its widest section, a baby’s face is about five eye widths wide. The width between the eyes is a little bit more than the width of an eye. Both the mouth and the nose are about the same width of an eye. Again, we must emphasize that these proportions are only a general rule and individual face proportions can be different. The above general rules can be used for

comparison purposes when you do your own careful observations of a particular face.
As always, start your drawing by striking the arabesque and then correcting the height/width proportions as necessary.

After establishing the primary facial proportions (i.e., the brow, nose, mouth, etc.) block-in the major light/dark patterns. Then, stump down the graphite using your fingers or a stump. To render and re-shape the lights use a clean kneaded eraser.

Now the features are carefully placed, sized and partially rendered. There are two things to remember here:

1. Your pencils must be very sharp, and

2. At this stage, you should never fully complete a feature. Render each feature no more than 50%.

Once the features are sized and placed as best you can, you can now further develop them. Do not neglect the hair and sides of the face. Everything should be brought up together. As you continue to draw you should always be on the lookout for errors in proportion and value.

In conclusion, the basic techniques used to draw a child’s portrait are of course always the same. Above, we listed most of the differences in proportion and form between an adult head and that of a child. Your mood when drawing a child should be one that reflects the innocence and the softness of a child.

Remi Engels is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter and expert teacher. Check out his Pencil Portrait Course and his Portrait Print Package Special

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Remi_Engels

If you’ve been to a street fair or amusement park lately, you may have seen a caricature artist in action.  People stop to have their comic portraits drawn in a cartoon style, often with very large heads and tiny bodies doing something funny.  If you’d like to learn how to draw these types of drawings, the book, Face Off: How to Draw Amazing Caricatures & Comic Portraits, by Harry Hamernik, can help.

Most books on how to draw caricatures are from famous artists who have done many celebrity portraits in the past.  Artists like Dick Gautier and Lenn Redman are two of the better known ones.  But their styles are a little dated, and you might be looking for something more applicable to modern style.

The book starts by discussing materials and supplies you will need, including pencils, paper, markers and color pencils.  I like the instructions for a do-it-yourself lap easel, which can be made cheaply if you have very basic handy construction skills.

He presents a specific process for drawing a portrait and encourages you to draw ten faces every day for twenty days in a row before trying to sketch someone.  You need to know how to do the process of a caricature first, without getting stuck, before you can then add the difficulty of trying to make it look like someone.

The next section covers how to draw specific features.  He gives several sample face shapes and examples of noses, eyes, hair, etc.  There are multiple helpful hints and tips scattered throughout, such as this one about eyes:  “A larger iris will make your subject look younger.  Think Bambi.”

He also discusses and explains distance, anchor, and pivot points.  These are key when drawing portraits, because the tiniest change in details can make your caricature look like the person or not.  Drawing a likeness is extremely difficult.

The rest of the book contains two large sections, one for 3/4 view portraits, and one for profile views.  These, like the section on face forward portraits, give lots of examples, tips, and tricks.

There is a great sampling of different facial types and a fair range of ages, although there are no older people at all.  But there are some with glasses, a head bandana, jewelry, and facial hair, the sorts of things that can trip you up.

Overall, this is an excellent overview if you are wanting to learn how to draw in this style.  Face Off: How to Draw Amazing Caricatures and Comic Portraits, by Harry Hamernik will get you started in the right direction.

Learn more about drawing cartoons

Find out more about how to draw caricatures and cartooning at http://cartooningbooks.net/book-review-face-off-how-to-draw-amazing-caricatures-and-comic-portraits/

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Face-Off:-How-to-Draw-Amazing-Caricatures-and-Comic-Portraits---A-Book-Review&id=5621292] Face Off: How to Draw Amazing Caricatures and Comic Portraits – A Book Review

Here, we are listing ten of the top products that are available on the Internet today. They have been placed in the order that we prefer them, but that is not to say you will!!

Have a browse through them and decide for yourself whether you think you can gain anything from them. It is suggested you read the testimonials where you find them as these provide information on how the courses have benefited users.

Good luck!

Believe it or not, many people don’t know what a pencil portrait is. It’s true! How do I know? Because not too long ago, I was one of them. I wouldn’t have given these delightful works a second thought, let alone learned how to draw a pencil portrait.

Oh sure, I’d seen them. I’d been to the mall. I’d noticed those black and white portraits of celebrities. I even used to own one. But I was dense enough about any type of art that I had no idea how the portrait had been created. If you had asked me, I probably would have said it was made with a computer! That fact that you have to actually draw a pencil portrait by hand just didn’t register.

It wasn’t till a couple of years ago that I began dating a woman who told me at one point that she liked to draw. At the time, my mind immediately went back to the game my sister and I used to play on rainy days. She’d name something and I’d have to draw it.

A couple of months later, she said she had some pencil portraits of me and she asked if I’d mind sitting for one. I was flabbergasted when she brought out 4 or 5 pencil drawings of my face. They were so real. So lifelike! Absolutely nothing like what my sister and I used to draw.

I was so impressed that she had actually drawn these with just a pencil. How was that possible? I ended up sitting for her many times. Eventually, I started to wonder if I could draw a pencil portrait myself. After all, I really enjoyed drawing for my sister all those years ago…

I did a little research online and found lots of tutorials. I learned the basics of drawing a human face. Pretty soon, I was drawing from everything. Magazines, photos; I’d draw anyone. I got to where I could draw a pencil portrait from memory of most people that I knew.

Eventually I could draw a pencil portrait well enough that anyone looking at it could identify the person I was drawing, if they knew the subject personally.

I liked this a lot! But the free tutorials I found online were limited in what they could teach me. It was all very mechanical. I wanted more.

So, I did some more online searching and finally chose a program that I believed would teach me to draw a pencil portrait better. And it did. It gave me the education I needed to draw realistic pe

How not to draw a pencil portrait!

ople the way I wanted to. I even gained enough confidence to ask my girlfriend to sit for me the way I had sat for her.

Unfortunately, we’ve long since broken up. But I’ll always be grateful to her for opening up the wonderful world of drawing pencil portraits to me. She gave me something I didn’t even realize was missing from my life.

If you have a budding artist inside of you, try to draw a pencil portrait. It may just open up something indescribable inside of you. Find yourself an online tutorial. Trust me, they are more informative than you may think.

Each and every artist has their own way of creating. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some constants that exist for every artist, across the board.

These pencil drawing techniques are used in every art form, portrait drawing included. Here are some “do’s and don’ts” that will not only make your pictures better, but help you get more enjoyment out of your drawing.

Holding Your Pencil

Can you believe it? I know what you’re thinking. “Uh, I was taught how to hold a pencil when I was five. Are you kidding me?” No, I’m not. This is one of those pencil drawing techniques that can make the difference between hours of enjoyment, or physical exhaustion.

Some artists will tell you that after a long drawing session, their fingers, wrist or even shoulder hurts. They accept it as part of the sacrifice of the art. But if they’d just look at how they’re holding their pencil, they may be able to alleviate that pain for good.

This is not say there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way to hold a pencil. What’s right for me may not be right for you. But if you’re in pain, you’re most likely holding it “wrong.” You need to have proper control, but don’t use a death grip.

Type Of Pencil

Speaking of pencils, are you using the old stand-by “number 2″ pencil? If you are, this may explain why you haven’t been able to get your shading right. Among basic pencil drawing techniques, choosing the right pencil for the right job is critical. Retire that number 2 and try a B, 2B, or even a 4B. With softer pencils you’ll see an increase in shadowing pretty quick.

Paper

Unfortunately, the lower grade the paper, the lower grade the drawing. Really cheap paper has a film on it that won’t grab the pencil materials and hold them. You need sketching paper. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it should be made for drawing.

And now that we’ve covered the negative pencil drawing techniques, let’s move on to the positive techniques that will help you draw beautiful pictures and portraits.

Cross Hatching

Learn Good Pencil Drawing Techniques

This is one of the pencil drawing techniques that will add realistic textures and depth to your pi

ctures. It’s an ideal technique for showing paths of light on the objects in your drawing. If done right, the individual strokes are undetectable, instead giving a smooth appearance.

Circles And Scribbles

Just drawing using this technique can be so relaxing. It loosens up your hand and helps release your creative juices. For your pictures, it allows for distinctive objects that have similar tones. It can make the textures contrast for a dynamic effect.

Contour Lines

Contour lines are the lines that follow the edges and curves of your objects, adding volume and giving shape. Drawing with them is also a great way to test out your paper and explore your space.

Smooth Shading

This final pencil drawing technique really makes a picture sit up and work. While applying a constant tone, vary the pressure in a gradual motion to achieve smooth shading. Make a transition from dark to light or light to dark in one, long stroke. Once you learn this, you can create areas of subtle change in tone that will dramatically improve your drawings.

Do you remember the last time you were at the mall? And as you were strolling along, you walked by a kiosk where they were selling framed pencil portraits of various celebrities did you wonder vaguely, how to draw realistic faces and make them so true to life? But then, you figured most likely it’s all done with a computer, and you walked on, forgetting all about them.

But, they’re not done by a computer. Well, maybe some are, but it is actually possible for a person to draw, using just a pencil, a “close to perfect” likeness of any face they see. Believe it or not, you could actually draw a picture of Brad Pitt or Marilyn Monroe, or yourself. It just takes some education and practice.

To the untrained eye, each and every face you see looks different. True, they all have eyes, noses, and mouths. But as you begin to really learn how to draw realistic faces, you discover that each one is unique.

A trained portrait artist knows that there are only a few basic shapes and standard measurements that all faces are made up of. Once you learn what they are, it only gets easier. Then, all that’s left to do is practice.

And practice some more…..

While you’re practicing, you can draw realistic faces of those you know, or you can simply copy faces in magazines or newspapers.

The five standard shapes of people’s faces are the same basic shapes you learned in kindergarten; Square, rectangle, oval, circle, and triangle. The variables really lie in the size and proportions of each. And, the shapes are not hard and fast. What I mean is, you may look at a face and see a circle. I could look at the same face and see a triangle. As they say, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

And, as far as the standard measurement guidelines go, here are a few of them:

When drawing a face, most people will put the eyes about 1/3 of the way down on the face. But when you learn how to draw faces the right way, you’ll see that what you actually want to do is place the eyes in the middle of the shape, and line the ears up with that. Don’t believe me? Go try it. While you’re at it, place the mouth in the middle, between the eyes and chin.

Another standard measurement when drawing the nose is that the distance from eyes to nose, and between the eyes, will almost always work out to be an upside-down, equal-sided triangle. And normally, the center of the eyes will line up with the edges of the mouth.

These are just a few basic tricks that will not only get you started, but make you see that it really is easier than you may have originally thought.

Mind you, I’m not trying to take away from anyone’s talent for drawing. It does take special talent to be a great pencil portrait artist! However, I just want it to be known that there are certain rules that can help you learn how to draw realistic faces right now. Give it a try and happy drawing!

You probably found this web site by looking for pencil drawing tutorials online – which if you think about it is quite amazing. Just a few years ago, who would have thought that art lessons were something you could find online in just a few mouse clicks, and right in the comfort of your own home?

Name just about anything, including artistic endeavors, and I guarantee you can find something about it on the web. I conducted an experiment. I input some of the weirdest things I could think of into Google just to see how many websites existed online on those subjects. Here are a few examples:

How to clean my kitchen trash can – 4,470,000 results
How to crack my knuckles – 396,000 results
How to win an argument with my spouse – 96,600,000 results
Art lessons – 450,000 results

When you look at the amount of information available, both valuable and useless, it seriously makes you wonder how we ever got along without it. Can you think back to what you did when you needed directions to somewhere, or needed opinions about a new restaurant you wanted to try, needed to pay your electric bill – or wanted to learn something fun and new? It’s honestly hard to remember how to do any of these things without the Internet.

And now the arts have become a huge part of the online world. These days you don’t need to go find a class somewhere to learn how to draw. You can take pencil drawing tutorials at home, in your spare time. And you’ll learn just as much, if not more, than you would in a classroom.

There are both free and paid pencil drawing tutorials available to you on the web. While the majority of the free tutorials will cover the basics and are definitely good enough to get you started, the tutorials you pay for go much further into what you need to know. And 99% of them will cost you less than a class that you have to drive to at a certain time each week.

It’s quickly becoming the way of the world now. Go to work during the day, and at night, sit at your computer and get an education. The convenience alone is usually worth the price. And when it comes to learning to draw, there’s nothing like working at your own pace in the comfort of your own home. If you’re the shy type who is sensitive to criticism, on the Internet no one can spy on your creations.

If you decide to take some online pencil drawing tutorials, be prepared to be shocked. The depth to which you will be taken into the world of drawing will be like nothing you can imagine.

They will use all types of online media available. There will be text for you to read, graphic examples for you to study and learn from, and even videos. You can watch a pencil drawing professional at work, over and over again, as much as you want. You can study his or her techniques without the pressure or time constraints of a face-to-face class.

It’s like having a teacher come to your home, only when it’s convenient for you. Or only when you’re in the mood.

If you’re already into pencil drawing, or you want to learn, check out some pencil drawing tutorials on the web. You won’t be sorry. The presentations are professional and informative. You’ll be an accomplished pencil artist in no time at all.

Have you ever watched as anyone who’s really good when they draw a picture? Especially of someone’s face? When a talented artist draws, they make it look so easy as the lines just flow from their hands as if by magic.

But that’s just how it looks on the surface. Most artists actually use a structured process to draw faces step by step. There’s a whole lot going on behind that pencil that you and I, as spectators, are not even aware of. And it’s not just head-in-the-clouds inspiration. It’s training and practice that makes it look effortless.

So even though portrait drawing does take some talent, it’s mostly based on education and know-how. And that’s what you’re about to get. Read on for the “secrets” of how to draw faces step by step.

1. Decide which shape the face is; circle, triangle, rectangle, oval, or square. Draw the outline of the face with this in mind. Then, either imagine in your mind or draw on the paper, two “guides,” one straight down the middle, and one directly across the middle, creating four equal parts of the face. This will help you keep the right proportions of the face.

2. Unless you know how to draw faces step by step, this is usually the part where most people will get totally lost. The eyes. In contrast to what you may believe, the eyes should always be placed on the horizontal line around the middle of the face shape.

Then, begin the nose right between the middle of the eyes, about half-way down from the middle horizontal line. Basically, you are creating an imaginary upside-down triangle from between the nose and the eyes.

Create a straight but short horizontal line just below the nose, about halfway down for the lips and mouth. Then add the ears, making the top of the ear line up with the eyes.

3. At this point you can start adding some detail to the eyes and mouth. Eyelids, eyebrows, and lips. Round out the nose to the shape of the face you’re drawing.

Try to keep the outer edges of the mouth in line with the center of the eyes.

4. Practice shadowing at this point. Shadow under the nose, at the top of and inside the ears, under the mouth, between the eyes, etc. Don’t go crazy, but at the same time, don’t be afraid to be bold.

5. As with a lot of things, the more you practice the more your drawings will begin to look more and more like the face you’re drawing. Of course, you’ll have a bald face unless you add some facial hair.

So once you get those basic facial features down, it’ll be time to work on adding some hair.

Any portrait artist will tell that you need to draw faces step by step and actually “build” a face on paper. Then once you get these steps down pat, it just takes practice. Your first face will not be a perfect likeness of whoever you’re drawing. In fact, it won’t look much like anyone at all. Don’t be discouraged. Keep at it.

The old cliche of “practice makes perfect” became a cliche because it’s true. With each face you draw, you’ll learn more and more what to do and, maybe more importantly, what not to do. And you’ll get better with each face.

But most importantly, have fun. If you don’t love what you’re doing, why do it?