Easy tutorial with step-by-step instructions

In this tutorial you will learn how to easily draw a basic female face with the right proportions step-by-step.

In the past few years a lot of people have asked me to write a tutorial about facial proportions. When I asked you guys on Instagram what your greatest struggle is, the answer that came up the most was: “proportions”. “The eyes always look different” and “I never get the nose right” were the things you complained about.

Well, here I want to show you an easy solution to this problem by sharing my strategy on drawing a basic face with construction lines.

NOTE: I’m going to show you some basic guidelines, but always keep in mind that everybody’s face is laid out differently. They might be very close to these facial proportions – or they might be pretty different. At the end of the article you’ll find a photo of myself with guidelines to show some of these slight variations.

This tutorial is for everybody! You don’t need any prior knowledge or experience for this.

So without further ado, let’s just jump right into it!

Materials:

• Pencils
• Paper
• Eraser
• Ruler (optional)

Overview of the steps to draw a generic female face:

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How to draw a face step-by-step

1. Draw a circle

We’re going to begin by drawing a circle. Don’t worry about being perfect at this point. You can refine everything later.

NOTE: Draw everything very lightly with an H or HB pencil, because we have to erase the guidelines later. We don’t want any lines dividing up our face on the final portrait.

Breaking down your motif into simple shapes helps you get the proportions right.

2. Cut off the sides

The next thing you need to do is slice off the sides of the circle.

Your sketch should look something like this:

3. Draw six equal squares

Next, add a horizontal line at the bottom of the circle.

Then, I want you to divide the circle in half vertically.

Now add another horizontal line above the bottom line. You should place the line so that it creates two equal squares.

Repeat this one more time on the top and one more time at the bottom to create 6 equal squares. You can measure the distances for every square but you can also draw by eye.

The squares don’t have to be perfect. Remember, you’re just drawing rough guidelines.

4. Draw the contour of the female face

At this point you can start drawing the contour of the face.

The hairline starts at the top horizontal line and the chin starts at the bottom line. Draw the jawline and cheekbones at the sides of the face and use the squares for guidance. Now the outline of the face is done.

5. Draw the neck

Next, add two lines from the jawline downwards to give the head a neck.

6. Draw the eyes and eyebrows of the female face

The next step is drawing the facial features. I always start with the eyes and eyebrows. The eyebrows are placed directly under the second line. Try to place them in the middle of the squares, leaving equal empty spaces on the left and on the right.

For the eyes you can draw an optional horizontal line which should divide the whole head (starting from the top of the circle down to the chin) in half. The pupils of the eyes should be placed on this line (see images below).

For the distance between the eyes, try to imagine another eye in the middle.

7. Draw the nose

Next, draw the nose.

To find the right position for the nose draw two vertical lines from the inner corners of the eyes down to the circle. This marks where the sides of the nose will end.

Draw a small circle in the middle for the tip of the nose and then draw two more small circles on each side for the sides of the nose. You can also draw to lines reaching from the eyebrows to the nose to mark the nasal bridge.

8. Draw the mouth

Draw the mouth in the next step. The mouth should be a little wider than the nose and the line between the lips should be relatively straight.

9. Draw the ears and hair

Now we’re almost done! In the next step, draw in the ears and the top of the head. The ears are positioned right in the middle of the squares. And for the top of the head you just have to trace the circle. Depending on the hairstyle you’re choosing, this line can vary.

That’s it! You’re done with the basic sketch. Now erase all construction lines.

Because people look different and facial features will not always look the same you can use this basic sketch as a starting point to further define your portrait. Allow yourself to play around with the facial features and create a character that is unique!

Here’s also a shaded version of this generic face – feel free to complete your portrait sketch using this as a guide for shading. If you’d like another tutorial on how to shade a face, let me know down in the comments!

Reality check

As promised at the beginning, I also want to show you that these guidelines don’t apply to every face. Have a look at this photo of me for example. My face is thinner, and also the space between my eyes is smaller than in the portrait sketch. Naturally my mouth is a lot wider because I’m smiling.

This tutorial is designed to give you a better understanding of facial proportions. But what I want to emphasize is: Don’t let these guidelines limit your creativity.

Hope you liked this tutorial! I’d love to see your drawings, tag me on Instagram so I can see them (@sabrillu_)
If you’d like another tutorial on how to shade a face, or how to draw a generic male face, let me know in the comments below!

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About me

I’m Sabrina Hassler, an artist from Austria. I love drawing detailed pencil drawings of both people and animals. I work with publishers and advertising agencies any many of my illustrations appear in books or on various products. Apart from drawing, I enjoy sharing my knowledge and techniques with other creative people. On this blog I share drawing tips and tricks and helpful resources for you to practise what you have learnt. Take a look at my portfolio of different works.

Maybe you’re also interested in these tutorials: My best tips for pen and ink drawings How to draw skin tones

This post How to draw a female face was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.

Step-by-step instructions + video tutorial

You’d like to know how to draw a rabbit with pencils? Perhaps you have always wondered how to draw realistic fur? You think drawing fur is complicated and only suitable for more advanced artists?

If so, I would like to show you otherwise and give you some tips so you can easily reach your goal. With these step-by-step instructions I hope to provide you with an easier strategy to use when drawing other animals!

Rabbits are such beautiful animals – with their long eyelashes, big round eyes and fluffy fur they are very popular in every respect. The fact that they are rarely seen in nature (at least where I’m from) in our latitudes) makes them even more interesting. With their gentle charisma and aesthetic, they are of course perfectly suited as a drawing motif.

About me

I’m Sabrina Hassler, an illustrator and artist from Austria. My areas of expertise include detailed pencil drawings and I love depicting both people and animals. I work with many publishers and advertising agencies any many of my illustrations appear in books or on various products. Apart from drawing, I enjoy sharing my knowledge and techniques with other creative people. On my blog I give drawing tips and tricks and helpful resources for you to practise what you have learnt. Take a look at my portfolio of different works.

But enough about all of that – let’s draw a rabbit!

Materials:

• Pencils ranging from H-6B (e.g. from Koh-I-noor or Faber Castell)
• A black colouring pencil (I use the Faber Castell Polychromos)
• Tissue or cotton bud
• Eraser or eraser pencil (z.B. Mono Zero from Tombow)
• Sketching paper (ideally at least 250 g/m²)

Preparation:

Before you draw your rabbit with different pencils, print out a black and white photo of a rabbit. The photo I used as a reference was taken by the wonderful photographer Deena Sveinsson. Here is a link to the photo .

These are the steps to draw a beautiful rabbit with pencils:

Video tutorial: How to draw a rabbit with pencils

And if you’re more of a reading-kind-of-person – here are your written instructions:

1. Sketching out the lines

In the first step we must map out the lines for the drawing.

TIP: When sketching, use a H or HB pencil, making sure not to press too hard.  This way you can easily erase guidelines and errors afterwards.

At first, the rabbit’s head can seem quite complex, but if you break down the motif into geometric shapes, you can easily map out the construction lines for your drawing.

Draw a long ellipse in the middle of your paper for the rabbit’s face.

Next, draw two more ellipses as ears, which start in the upper third of the first ellipse and protrude slightly outwards. Use your printed photo as a guide to get the angle of the ears right.

Another ellipse (this time drawn horizontally) marks out its cheeks.

TIP: Break your motif down into simple shapes. This will help you to get the proportions right. This works for every motif!

In my sketch you can also see that the head is divided by a cross in the middle. The horizontal line shows you exactly where the eyes will be, and the vertical line is a guide for the centre of the face. This will help you later when drawing eyes, nose and mouth.

You can also draw the rough outlines of the body. Have a look at my sketch to see what I mean.

2. Completing the rough sketch of the rabbit

By breaking down the motif in the first step, completing the sketch is now much easier. Now draw the eyes, nose and mouth (and the soft chin) of the rabbit. Use the cross in the middle of the face as a guide.

Next, lightly soften the contours of your rabbit to make them flow. Imagine the ellipses melting into one another. Adjust the shape of the ears accordingly. If you look closely, you will notice that the ears are tapered at the top and are not perfect ellipses.

Once you are satisfied with the sketch, erase all construction lines.

Your sketch should look something like this:

3. Light shading

We can now start to shading.

Take a close look at your printed photo and try to narrow down the medium dark and darkest areas of the photo. After all, the photo is made up of many different shades of grey – now concentrate only on these medium and darkest shades of grey. Fill in these areas on your drawing with a pencil. It is best to use an HB or 2B pencil. Be careful not to make these areas too dark, because you can add more later.

Leave the lighter areas in the photo blank (e.g. around the eyes or middle of the ears).

4. Darkening

In the next step, take a softer pencil, e.g. 4B, and go over these very dark areas again.

Which areas look almost black in the photo?

These are the areas you should be focussing on with your pencil. These are, for example, the eyes (note: leave out the highlights!), the nose, the mouth and the inside of the ears.

NOTE: A soft pencil contains more graphite than a hard pencil and is therefore darker – it is also more difficult to erase.

5. Blending

Next, use a scrunched-up tissue or cotton swab to smooth out the edges.

Gently wipe over your pencil strokes to make them softer and more even.

This way, even the smallest gaps between the strokes are filled in with a little graphite and the drawing looks much less rough.

If you wanted to achieve a rough look, you could always skip this step.

6. Erase highlights

For step number 6 you need an eraser pencil or a pointed eraser. I can highly recommend purchasing an eraser pencil, which you can use to erase single strokes very precisely.

Now take another look at your reference photo and identify the brightest areas. You might have blended into these areas with your tissue or cotton bud in the previous step.

Therefore, you should now touch up the edges with your eraser of choice. On my drawing you can see which areas I have gone over with an eraser.

The practical thing about an eraser pencil is that you can use it to erase individual hairs. Erase lighter hairs individually to achieve a realistic effect.

7. Drawing the rabbit’s fur with dark pencils

We can now draw in realistic fur. You have already laid the foundation for this in the previous steps. Use an extra dark pencil – upwards of 4B – and start to draw lots of individual hairs.

The rabbit’s fur on its head and ears is much shorter than on its body. This means that your strokes on the head must be short and the strokes on the body a little longer and more curved.

In fact, the fur on the nose is so short that you should almost draw dots instead of lines.

Pay attention to the direction the fur grows in! Not all hairs flow in the same way. You should also make this visible in your drawing. Look at this picture for reference:

8. Add some contrast to your rabbit drawing

Give your drawing more depth by making the black areas even darker with a black colouring pencil. This increases the contrast between light and dark areas, making your drawing much more realistic and three-dimensional.

TIP: Use an opaque black colouring pencil to draw black areas. Crayons are opaquer and more matt than pencils.

The darkest parts of your drawing will attract the viewer’s attention first.

Therefore, you should give the eyes, nose and mouth a lot of black. The eyes will become much deeper and more realistic.

9. Draw some details to make the rabbit look more realistic

In the last step you can add a few more details to your rabbit.

For example, we cannot forget to include the long, protruding whiskers that are characteristic of a rabbit. Because these long hairs are very thin and rather light, you should use a hard pencil (H). A hard pencil does not get dull as quickly. This will help you to maintain a constant stroke width.

Move the pencil across the paper in dynamic, fast motions. Press firmly at the beginning of the stroke and then release (reduce pressure) towards the end of the stroke. This way your strokes will be evenly curved and thinner towards the end.

Here is my finished piece:

I hope you enjoyed drawing this as much as I did. I would love to hear how you got on. You can write me a message or tag me on Instagram !

Maybe you’re also interested in these tutorials: My best tips for pen and ink drawings How to draw skin tones

I made another rabbit drawing some time ago

If you like, you can also watch a timelapse of the drawing process further down 🙂

Here you can see my finished drawing (after I added an orange background and a frame with Photoshop).

Scroll down for the video!

How I draw a rabbit with pencils

Here’s a photo you can save to your Pinterest.

Check out my boards on Pinterest!

https://www.pinterest.at/Sabrillu/amazing-portrait-drawings/

I’d be happy to hear from your results! Feel free to tag @sabrillu_ on your picture on Instagram, so I can see your drawings!

This post Draw a rabbit with pencils was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.

Guest Post

I am very happy to show you this super helpful tutorial that the lovely and very talented Anna prepared for us.
Anna supported me as an intern for 4 weeks and is currently studying to be a graphic designer. In her spare time, she draws playful characters and is also a real professional when it comes to realistic drawings. At the moment she prefers to use coloured pencils for her creations and can help us understand the complexity of skin tones in this tutorial.

Preparations

Before we can start, you first need a suitable portrait photo that you want to draw (as an exercise, you can also use the same photo I used). It doesn’t matter whether you have your photo printed out or in digital form. These are the drawing materials you will need:

• Coloured pencils (I used Polychromos from Faber Castell)
• and the basics, such as erasers, sharpeners and paper

Option 1: Analyse Colours Digitally

I first divided the skin colours in Photoshop using “Posterize“. If you have access to a computer with an internet connection, you can also download a (free) photo program (e.g. Gimp) and try it out yourself. The number of colours in the picture is reduced and colours that you wouldn’t have noticed before become more visible in larger coloured areas.

What this tone separation shows us is that there are many unusual colours hidden in a person’s skin! In the picture you can see the individual areas and below them some colour boxes with the most important skin tones.

Of course, you won’t find all the colours that you’ve just discovered as colouring pencils in your box. This is why you need to apply and mix different colours on top of each other to get the right result.

I can assure you that there is a way to mix any colour!

Take a white sheet of paper and try to mix the skin colours as similarly as possible with your coloured pencils. You can also use this practice sheet for mixing colours.

Write down exactly which pens you used so that you can select them again later for your drawing. I find this method very helpful. Even if you don’t have that much experience, you have at least chosen the right colours!

Option 2: Improve Your Colour Perception

If you only have a printed photo to hand, or would prefer to work without digital help, this tip can definitely help you!

For this you’ll need a white sheet of paper in the same format as your photo, a pair of scissors / cutter and a set square. Draw a 1cm x 1cm square in the middle and then cut it out.

Then you put the paper on top of the photo. Move it so that you can see different areas of the skin through the hole. Because you only see a small section of the skin, you can focus on each individual colour. This “little window” allows you to see the colour as a sectioned-off area on the white paper. The comparison with the white of the paper will help you to objectively analyse the color. This way your clever brain can no longer tell you that every face is only made up of pink tones. 🙂

The next step is the same as in option 1. Take a second sheet of paper and place it next to the window. Try to recreate the shade you see through the hole with your coloured pencils.

Part 2: Drawing Process + Video!

When drawing with colored pencils, the following applies in general: Use even movements applying the same pressure and add several thin layers on top of each other from different directions.

Step-by-step: Drawing Skin Tones With Coloured Pencils

1. Sketch the outline of your portrait.
2. Lightly erase the sketch so that it becomes only slightly visible. (a kneaded eraser is very suitable for this)
3. Start your drawing with a first layer, which should serve as a base. I used the brightest pencil for this. Choose a neutral color. In my case it was a light, warm shade of grey. Try to apply this first layer very evenly to dark areas and leave the light areas lighter or completely white.
4. Then start in the darkest area of ​​the face. It is always easier to make dark areas even darker afterwards instead of making light areas lighter. For example, if you start in the light area and it turns out to be too dark, it is difficult to touch up with an eraser later.
   

   Therefore, always start drawing in the darkest areas of your portrait. Warning: that doesn’t mean you should draw with the darkest pencils first!

5. Always work your way from light to dark.

   Work in very fine layers without applying a lot of pressure. Take your practice sheet to hand – you have already written down all the colours that you need for your drawing. Then always choose the lightest colour you wrote down for the colour field and slowly work your way to the darker colours.
   In my case, I started on the far left (near the ear) with light green and light brown and then gradually built up the right shade with dark brown and dark grey. I used a lot of brown, grey and green in the neck area

   You shouldn’t use black at all at the beginning. The darkest accents are best set at the very end, when it is already clear what light-dark balance the picture has or needs.

6. It gets significantly lighter on the cheeks and warm shades such as purple and red are used.
   

   Tip: Try to draw in small curved movements, this will give you smoother transitions.

7. When you are satisfied with the colours and shades, take your lightest coloured pencil (white or grey) and move it in a curved motion over darker areas that you would like to appear “softer“. The pencil will blend the underlying colours and make the surface appear smooth. Repeat the same for the light areas of the face with a white pencil.
8. Finally, take a dark coloured pencil (dark brown or black) and use it to  set contrasts. For example, under the chin there is a space that separates the face and neck, which you can emphasize a little. This way you give your drawing even more contrast. Remember to be very careful with the dark tones. Black and other dark colors are more suitable for drawing eyelashes and hair.

Wow! What an amazing tutorial! A huge THANK YOU to Anna for sharing her tips on how to draw skin tones using coloured pencils with us!

Your turn!

Did you try the tutorial? How did it go? What strategies help you to draw lively skin tones with coloured pencils? Tell me about it in the comments and

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Find more tutorials here:

How to draw a female face

In this easy step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to draw a beautiful female face with the right proportions. You only need pencils and paper, let’s go!

Read more

Draw a rabbit with pencils

In this easy step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to draw a realistic rabbit with different pencils. Drawing animals is so much fun!

Read more

My 5 best tips for pen & ink drawings

Here are my 5 best tips for learning how to draw with pen & ink. So grab your drawing materials and improve your ink drawings instantly!

Read more

This post How to Draw Skin Tones With Coloured Pencils | Video Tutorial was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.

Two ways to draw cute bees

You know that it’s getting warm when you finally hear the little bees flying around again. I think bees, and especially bumblebees, just look so incredibly cute and fluffy, which also makes them a great motif for a drawing. In this post I’ll show you how to draw a bumble bee with watercolours.

You want to draw a bee too? Go watch my video, where I show you how I did it! 🙂

In the first picture I drew a bumble bee with black fineliners, yellow acrylic paint and a white gel liner in my brown sketchbook from Matabooks. The sketchbook is one of my favorites because it has a great structure and the cool thing about it: it’s made of grass! As a reference, I simply picked out some nice photos from Google.

Here’s the final result. I added the brown background and the plants later in Photoshop.

I hope you liked my video. If you’ve tried it yourself, I’d love to see your results! As always: Feel free to write me, if you have any questions!

Here’s a picture you can save to your Pinterest

More Tutorials:

• How to draw a rabbit with pencils
• How to draw a portrait

Who am I?

Hi, my name is Sabrina. I’m an illustrator and artist from Austria and this is my drawing blog. Do you want to know more about me or my work?

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This post Draw a bee with watercolours was first published on Illustration & Drawing Blog.