You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (53 page)

8. Draw the lips, remembering the contour curving shading from your study of da Vinci. Shape the nose and the eyebrows.

 

9. Did you know the average head weighs sixteen pounds? That’s as heavy as a bowling ball. Remember this when you draw in the neck; it has to hold a lot of weight. It’s not a Popsicle stick; it’s a thick cylinder. The neck starts at the nose guide line, tapers in for the throat, and then tapers out as it leads into the shoulders. Sketch in the hairline halfway between the eyes and the top of the scalp. A common mistake is to draw the hairline too high, so use your guide line. Now, draw the ears using the eye and the nose guide lines. Begin the hair using flowing S curves, keeping in mind the overall shape of the hair.

10. Shape the forehead, temples, jawbone, and neck. Draw hair like da Vinci did, with a few defining wisps. Enjoy shading this face with blended shading. Remember to start at the lightest areas first (think of where your own face gets sunburned first): the center of the forehead, tip of the nose, and tops of the cheeks and chin. Focus on keeping these areas reflective and almost white. Add gradually darker shading away from the light source, which for this drawing is above and in front of the face.

Excellent job! You’ve studied the genius pencil lines of Leonardo da Vinci, and you’ve learned the mathematical grid structure of the human face.

Look at Michele’s drawing of the human face lesson below. She did a wonderful job using her own style to interpret the lesson. She has a much more realistic style as compared to my more animation/comic book style. Great drawing, Michele!

T
he eye. Without a doubt, it’s my favorite thing to draw on humans, creatures, animals, aliens, robots, and, yes, even marshmallows, as I’ve done on my national public television series. The human eye is most definitely the window into a person’s soul. But how to capture it?

To draw the eye in 3-D, I first want you to grab a small mirror. I want you to prop this mirror up next to you while you are drawing at the table. I want you to be able to look closely at your own eye as we draw this lesson. This is a technique I picked up from my visit with some of my alumni students at Dream Works PDI a number of years ago. The animators were working on
Shrek
, and at their drawing animation stations they had several computers, monitors, multiple drawing surfaces, and, interestingly, two mirrors on either side of their drawing tables. As the animators worked on drawing different parts of Shrek, I could see them scowling at their mirrors while drawing Shrek’s scowling face. I saw them holding their hands up in different positions while drawing Shrek’s hands. It was so exciting to watch these world-class artists bring Shrek to life. Now, let’s add life to your own sketchbook—let’s draw the eye.

 

1. While sitting at your table, look into your mirror. Now, look a few moments longer.... What a gorgeous miracle you are. Just look at that image! Those eyes! Those lips, nose, ears, hair, what a perfect model to draw from. You traced da Vinci in Lesson 28; now you will drawing from the most perfect eye model on the planet—yourself ! Very lightly shape the eye. For this lesson, we will draw an eye that resembles the shape of a lemon, with the bulb of the lemon facing the nose, shaping the tear duct. As you draw more eyes (and you will no doubt draw hundreds more, they are so cool to draw), you will notice there are as many variations for eye shapes as there are people on the planet. For this lesson we will use a simple lemon shape.

2. Look in your mirror, and take a close look at your left upper eyelid. Notice how the creases follow the contour shape of the eye. Draw the upper eyelid starting at the tear duct.

 

3. Draw the perfectly round circle of the iris tucked under the upper eyelid just a bit. We are applying the drawing law of overlapping. Remember that the iris is a perfect round circle, not an oval. Look into your mirror. Look closely at the thickness edge running along the top of the lower eyelid. Interesting, tiny details like this one are what you want to look for and draw. These are the details that will really give your eye drawing the “wow” factor. Without them, your drawing will not look realistic.

4. Look into your mirror. Look closely at the pupil in the center of your iris. Notice the perfect roundness of the circle. Notice the tiny spots of reflection inside the black circle. Draw the perfect round circle pupil in the middle of your iris. Lightly block out a small circle shape to reserve for the light-reflection effect.

5. Look into your mirror. Look closely at your pupil again. Look at the deep black of the pupil and the brightness of the reflection. Draw this deep black pupil with the light reflection.

6. Look into your mirror. Look closely at the iris area around your pupil. Look again. Now, look again. Just an awesome play of light, color, moisture, shape, such detail! When you are drawing the iris, use pencil strokes radiating out from the dark pupil, and use a variety of line lengths, some short, some long. When you start experimenting with colored pencils, this is the lesson I would recommend you start with. (Using colored pencils to draw the iris is . . . how would I describe it? A transcendental experience!)