This series of lessons will walk you through the complete process for drawing a detailed portrait in charcoal paper.
The first session will focus on getting an accurate block-in of the basic shadow shapes and darker tones that make up the drawing.
Materials:
- Toned paper
- Charcoal
- Kneadable Eraser
- Sanding Block
- Sharpener
- Drawing Board
- Easel
- Tape your piece of paper to the board – if you want an extra nice drawing suface you can put an extra sheet of paper below.
- Begin by marking in the biggest proportions; height of the head, width of the head, body etc.
- Sketch these in very lightly with soft lines that will be easy to erase.
- Then you need to find the outside ‘envelope’ of the head – a simple set of lines that captures all the major changes of direction around the figure.
- Keep correcting things until everything is setting in the right place.
- Finally, make a mark for the height of the eyes, base of the nose, centreline of the mouth and a vertical line for the middle of the face.
- It is important that you don’t rush the early stages.
