How to Draw by Carlos Aleman

How to draw a photo realistic pencil portrait

I used to paint realistically but then I thought, why? the thing is already there..
--Steven Wright

If you are here to learn photo realism, I assume that you are already have some experience drawing.

The hardest part about drawing is getting the proportions right. Therefore, you have to spend hundreds of hours drawing hundreds of portraits. Once you're reasonably comfortable drawing the human face, you may want to take a stab at realism.

Why realism?

There is nothing particularly creative or valuable about making a graphite (pencil) drawing look realistic. It probably has much to do with obsessive compulsive needs for control (when life seems out of control, i.e. perfectionism). Most of my hyper realistic drawings were done at a point in my life when I was having health problems and struggling to find answers.

Graphite Drawing

Although, today, these drawings may not be considered 'real art', they can be just as interesting to look at as fine black and white photography (in my humble opinion :-). Probably one of the prerequisites to realistic pencil drawing is a true love for BW photos. Sometimes before starting a drawing, I'll look for inspiration not only from the subject but the work of professional photographers. I like to study the cropping, lighting and because I use Adobe Photoshop myself, I'm sometimes aware of the effects and filters that go into the image. By the way, here is a great black and white Photoshop technique using adjustment layers and overlay layer modes -Click Here

Since this tutorial will focus on portraiture, I'll begin with a very quick anatomy lesson.

First, we should think about the basic shapes that make up the head and shoulders. Although I like to draw close ups of the face, the neck and shoulders are very important because they support the head, physically and visually. We will draw a straight on frontal view, because this is the easiest to understand, and once you learn this, you can start drawing heads from many different angles.

Let's start off with two shapes that are the same size, a circle and a square (the square is just for measurement). You can draw these shapes, but they will not be a part of any artwork. We are only working in our minds.

Drawing a head is like a circle

As you look at the square, imagine dividing it in two and creating a circle -half the size as the first that will fit exactly in the upper half of the square:

drawing a head with two circles one of them half the size of the other

Now imagine a line that wraps around both circles. The only purpose of this mental exercise is to make it clear that the head is like 2 circles, one circle half the size of the other...

to draw a head connect the two circles

Because there are so many types of heads, I don't want to give a formula for measuring the face. If you're a left brained person, you may crave some kind of mathematical way of separating facial features, but I don't think this is the best way. It is not artistic and it is also not accurate. Some people have big chins or long narrow faces and others have wide faces. It would be frustrating to try to use the same formula for everyone, and you would be turning an emotional experience into something cold and mechanical.

However, just to find a reference point, I like to imagine a horizontal line through the center of my imaginary top circle to find where the eyebrows might be located. We can also imagine the tip of the nose positioned in between the two circles. You can use the bottom circle as a guide to where the neck might be located. Remember, in nature there are no straight lines so don't think of the neck as straight.

draw the eyebrow in the middle of the top circle

Now that we have a visual concept of the human head, we'll need a real head.

Because of the nature of photo realism, you will probably need to take a picture of your subject. You will need a high quality photograph with excellent lighting to work from (For a good tutorial on portrait photography, click here).

According to legend, the great master painters always posed their models in front of a window facing north. I like to use this technique, except for the part about north.

Portrait by Vermeer

Girl With A Pearl Earring By Vermeer

I like to pose my subject in a slightly dark room next to a window and take pictures from a variety of angles. What I look for is interesting shapes and patterns created by the light. Later, I will be drawing these shapes to create the illusion of 3 dimensions.

I will start off with a light gesture sketch (loose scribble) of the head. People who have mastered the art of gesture sketching will scribble the entire face capturing energy and emotion. Alberto Giacometti was known for his powerful gesture sketches which eventually became very expressive sculptures (see below).

Drawing by Alberto Giacometti

As the gesture sketch develops, I'll become more careful and intentional about my drawing and begin concentrating very hard on detail. I'll slowly make the lines darker as I build up the features of the head and face.

For my first example, I'll show some of the basic stages of a drawing that I did a few years back of a girl.

So here is my technique:

I start off with a very light gesture sketch.

Hopefully the gesture sketch captures the energy and subtle movement of the subject. You can make a drawing look very realistic, but unfortunately look 'stiff' and lifeless if you fail to capture these qualities. Just look at many of the Northern European Renaissance painters -very realistic, yet very unnatural ...in contrast to the Italians who didn't focus on realism, yet their forms were usually melodic and natural.

If the proportions look correct, I'll make the lines darker. I'm searching for interesting patterns as if, I were creating a coloring book, knowing that I will eventually be using these shapes to help me determine where I will be shading. In fact, the initial sketch should look a little like a color by numbers project. In the drawing below, you can't see all the lines of the gesture sketch because they're so light, but they are the foundation for this portrait.

drawing outline

The following may seem somewhat mechanical, but because graphite pencils smear, I start my shading at the top of the drawing and work my way down. In this drawing, I used a mechanical pencil, the cheap kind that you buy at the grocery store. These pencils create surprisingly dark lines. I also use a harder lead like an HB pencil for the lighter tones. And finally, a 2H pencil for creating very light lines (more on this later).

adding detail to the drawing

With the mechanical pencil, I will make tiny circles and add pressure to increase the darkness. This is very time consuming and requires a lot of patience. The drawing itself may take several days depending on how much you use this technique. You don't have to use circles, but the idea is to have as much visual information per every inch as possible.

On the lightest parts of the skin, I use an HB pencil. You can also use a No. 2 pencil instead. Now, you may ask, how am I getting it to look so real? The picture that I took has been uploaded to my computer, so that means I can zoom in on it to see detail. That's right, I'm looking at the screen on my notebook computer as I'm drawing. Only working on a very tiny portion at a time. I try to replicate what I see with tiny circles just as if you were to view a photo in a magazine with a magnifying glass, you would notice that it is made of tiny dots because of the printing process. Again, this may seem very mechanical (you're essentially becoming a human printing machine), but you are reading a tutorial on photo realism :-) -that's why the gesture sketch is so important to the drawing. This is your chance to express yourself before the technical process begins...