Guidelines For Pencil Portrait Sketching - Positioning Skull Landmarks

By Author: Remi Engels
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A pencil portrait drawing from life starts with the "drawing" of the arabesque. Striking the arabesque means drawing the outer contour of the head with the proper proportions, form, and theproper symmetry.

Once you have drawn a reasonably proper arabesque it is time to position the main landmarks of the head. That means that we will correctly position the most essential spots of the head. These spots will then be used as references for mapping out the rest of the head features.

Here is something that may assist you with this task: work with your eyes somewhat out-of-focus. This is called looking with a "soft eye". Somehow this makes it easier to correctly decide shapes and proportions. It also helps you with suppressing the preconceived ideas we all have of certain objects.

Let us assume that we are working from a three-quarter head profile.

* The Brow Ridge - is the first essential landmark. To place the brow ridge you must first take your best estimate at where you think it is and only then test it by sighting.

Note that to teach your eyes it is better to first estimate lengths, angles, ...
... etc. and test them later. There is nothing to gain from pre- measuring.

Sighting means to use your pencil with locked arm and marking lengths along the pencil with your thumb and index finger and one eye closed.

So then, first sight from the bottom of the chin to a spot on the brow ridge (just choose an arbitrary spot on the ridge. But once chosen you should hold on to it.

Now lift your pencil so that your thumb is on your spot on the brow ridge and note where your pencil tip is. It should be a small distance above the top of the head. Mark on your drawing where you can best place that point above the head. This point is called the "check-point".

Remember that whenever there is a choice, you should always measure the shortest distance because doing so tends to be more right.

Your spot on the brow ridge should, if it was placed correctly, be exactly halfway between the bottom of the chin and your check-point. If it is not †then improve the placement of your brow ridge.

* Jaw Hinge - Now you can tag the width of the face. In the three-quarter view the hinge of the jaw is an important landmark. Again, take your best guess then check by sighting horizontally from the hinge of the jaw to the far edge of the cheek bone and vertically relating that measure from the bottom of the chin.

* Top Nose Bone - Since we have already located the brow ridge we now only have to approximate a short measure to place the top of the nose bone. If you established the hinge of the jaw correctly, it should equal the measure from the bottom of the chin to the nose bone. If you are off a bit, then correct the placement of the hinge of the jaw. Again, assume that the shortest length estimated is the right one.

Now that these principal landmarks are located you can further work out the arabesque. I find it best to further resolve only the back, least intricate, part of the head at this early point.

* Facial Angle - Lastly, you need to position the facial angle which is the center line of the face. Draw a slightly bending line from the middle of the mental tubercle up through the center of the brow ridge.

The positioning of the facial angle is very essential. You have to feel your way through this as there is no way to correctly measure it.

Once the facial angle is located continue resolving the arabesque carefully observing the form of the mouth area, the forehead, and all other features that are expressed in the form of the arabesque.

With this, we have located all the fundamental landmarks that will assist us with the mapping of the rest of the features such as the ears and nose.
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Course. Remi Engels is a pencil portrait draftsman and oil painter and expert sketching instructor. See his work at Pencil Portraits by Remi: http://www.remipencilportraits.com Visit Tips on Pencil Portrait Drawing - Positioning Head Landmarks.