Recently I wrote a blog post about two techniques I often use for drawing portraits, and today I want to focus on one of those, and show you how I used it to do my new drawing of Emma Watson. While at the start I used to mainly apply the grid method, I have recently moved on to use the shape method that I’ll be showing you in this post, much more. Even though this drawing was a digital piece, the technique applies the exact same way and perhaps even more so, to traditional drawing.
Final piece vs. Reference photo:
Here's how I used the shape method to draw my new portrait of Emma Watson:
First I started with sketching a basic oval shape around the area where the face would be. The whole idea with this technique is working around the page, and roughly sketching shapes in places where you estimate the objects (or in this case, facial features) would be. Then I added some more shapes, and used them to help me sketch the outlines of the figure.
Next, I added even more shapes, an oval for the eye, and the shape of the earring. After doing the basic shapes, I started removing the initial shapes that I no longer needed, refining and adding detail to the eye area, and adding the eyebrow and other details as well. At this stage, the features do not need to be accurate, we just need to get a basic idea of placement and proportions.
I kept working around and refining different parts of the facial features, and expanding to do the rest of the body shape. I made the jaw line more defined, and the expression more clear. I also sketched lines that will later help me when painting. Even at this stage the sketch doesn’t need to be accurate, because we can always refine it later on in the process.
After getting to this stage of my sketch, I slowly started adding color by first doing the base colors and going around to add more layers and details. Let me know if you’d like me to do a more detailed explanation of my digital (or traditional) painting technique.
That’s how I did the basic portrait sketch, which I then spent many many hours painting on procreate. It’s definitely not perfect – in fact I can spot mistakes already – but I hope this helped you in some way!
…Also, I don’t know why I do this, but I subconsciously always pick the reference photo that looks the least like the person, it’s like I’m purposely trying to torture myself…
Watch these time-lapses of me sketching the portrait and painting it.
Don’t forget to let me know what you thought of this drawing, and if you learnt something from this post!