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Drawing Faces

When I am drawing faces, I always lay in very lightly the whole form of the face as shown here below, trying to establish as solid understructure as possible without spending too much time. Here, I used the mechanical pencil. I favor the mechanical pencil for its convenience, as you dont need to sharpen and carry around sandpaper, or razors, and the lead remains sharp. I have used the hb lead. I did this sketch from life at the library, of a girl seated across the table.

Then and only when I felt solid and sure about the understructure or the "lay-in", I began placing the features, such as inserting the eye into the eye socket as shown here in this pencil drawing lay-in, as a sculptor would start inserting an eyeball into the eyesocket hole he have built for the head. I always think three dimensionally even though I am creating on a two dimensional surface.

I continued to place the other features over the light lay-ins, the nose, the other eye, etc., pressing and releasing the pencil as I go, controlling the values (lightness and darkness),keeping all the technical aspects into consideration, the shapes, values, contours, design, etc.

continuing the same thing, placing features, hairlines, giving more definition and form to the facial surface, etc. Also worked on shading the face, giving it more tone and definition and values. When I shade, i always work around the forms, hatching wit the point of the pencil to define the forms, instead of blending or smudging.

I continued outward indicating the hair to finish things off, as if a sculptor would lastly place the hair loosely on top of the solid head he has created. Then continued to polish and define the piece. I added details and tightened things up in general to finish the piece.

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