Learn to Draw Caricatures - Drawing the Forehead

         
 
 
 

DRAWING CARICATURES

 
 
 
 

Drawing the Forehead

We're still drawing her

Here's the drawing so far...

Now that we have the lower half of the face drawn, let's work on the upper part. To get the forehead and the hairline, we'll continue with the facial contours we started on the previous page.

Get your lap desk out and clip your unfinished caricature of the woman on it and get comfortable in front of your computer. Sharpen your 5B pencil and have your eraser handy. If you'd like to print out the photo we'll be working with, go ahead.

Do you see in the photo that she has a bit a of a widow's peak? That's where the hairline comes to a bit of a point. Let's find that and get the top of the forehead marked. Remember that the eyes are at the horizontal midpoint of the head? Let's check that here. Using your pencil, on the photo, measure from right between her eyes to the bottom of her chin. Now, holding that measure, slide the pencil up so the chin-end of the measure is right between her eyes. Now do you see that her forehead is a bit shorter than the measure? We'll use that measurement as the height of her forehead. On your caricature, measure from in between her eyes to the bottom of the chin. Slide the pencil up to between her eyes and make a mark slightly below where you measured to. That's where her hairline will be. On the left side face contour can you continue the line to where you marked the forehead? I'd start at the forehead mark and meet up with the face contour. This side is easy because it's a pretty uninterrupted curve.

The left contour and some hairline.

Finished forehead

You'll see in the above image that I already started to draw the hairline. See that right angle shape that the hairline makes on the left side of the forehead? I noticed that the angle started right about at the corner of her right eye. So I sighted up from the corner of her right eye, and when I got parallel with the widow's peak I'd drawn I made a mark. then I drew the contour of the hairline connecting the two points. Now it should be a relatively easy task to follow the contour of the hairline down to the right side of the head. Go ahead and try and finish the hairline and the side of the head on your drawing.

If we had wanted to give her a massive forehead, we wouldn't measure for where the hairline should go. We'd just guess and put the hairline somewhere miles above the eyes. Personally, though, I think giving her a large forehead would be a mistake. Large foreheads are one of those things that make people look younger because infants seem to have large, underdeveloped heads. Other things that make people look young: short noses, small chins, large eyes, and no cheek bones.

 
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