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Three angles you could draw a
person's head |
There are three common ways that the portrait is
drawn: Profile, Straight On, and Three Quarters. We'll
look at each view in turn. First, let's look at the
human head in profile. The profile is when the subject
is looking left or right so that only one side of the
face is visible. Many people feel that the profile is
the easiest of the three views to draw because the
facial features are very minimized in relation to the
rest of the head. You're only dealing with one eye
instead of two, there's also only one ear, and half a
nose and mouth. I won't dispute that profiles are
easier, but the same problems of proportion happen in
all three views, so let's look at these problems first
using profiles.
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Egyptian Profile |
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Fixed Egyptian Profile |
Here's an ancient example of a
profile. The Egyptians were a highly developed culture,
but their depictions of humans were very highly stylized
and not really true to life. Look at the photo to the
right. Can you see any factors in this painting that
would make it look "less realistic"? The two biggest
errors are the eye and the ear. The eye looks more like
an eye that is seen from the front, not the side. And
the ear itself looks fine, but it's too high up on the
head. These errors aren't confined to this one image,
every ear they drew seemed to be too high up on the
head, and they never seemed to see the eye in true
profile. The Egyptians placed the ear so that the bottom
of the earlobe fell about to the middle of the nose and
the top of the ear ends up above the eyebrow. They
seemed to have the general size of ear correct, it's
size is usually from the eye to the bottom of the nose,
but they always set the ear too high. The top of the ear
should line up with the eye and the bottom should line
up between the nose and mouth. Look at the next
illustration to see what a profile with these two errors
fixed might look like. Measuring features on the face
to get them in proper proportion is really important
because each person's face is unique, and has unique
proportions. Because of this, you must measure one
feature against another feature on the same face in
order to get the proper proportions for that face. For
example, if you measure on your subject that his ear is
the same length as his nose, in your drawing of this
person, his ear better be the same length as his nose.
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An incorrect profile |
Even though each face is unique unto itself, there are
still some general guidelines to help you with proper
proportion. Many of the same measurements and
proportions happen on every face, and if you know these
"global measurements and guidelines" you will have a
good starting point for your drawing. Many of the errors
that happen when drawing people happen because the
artist isn't aware of these "global measurements and
guidelines", and is allowing his own mind to fool him
with what he thinks he sees. Look at the profile drawing
to the right. It shows how a beginning artist might draw
a profile. It also shows some of the common errors in
drawing the face that artists make. It's obvious that
this profile is "incorrect", but why is it incorrect?
Click on it and I'll show you why. |
