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Sketching hair is dictated by several aspects: the type of hair, its hue, quality, amount, the arrangement and styling of the hair, the individuality and mood of the sitter or the photograph, and the light effect upon the hair. The arabesque of the hair is part of the overall arabesque. A correct arabesque is critical to the likeness of the hair. Many starting draftspersons begin with the face and grow outward from there. This is however a poor approach and instills bad habits that will prove hard to break. In fact, the arabesque is especially critical when render a coiffure. Attempting to render the hair working from the inside out, bit by bit, is a recipe for failure. The hair will result in being either too small for the skull or too large. Drawing within the arabesque of the hair, first put in the main darks. These darks are best seen by squinting down your eyes until a general pattern of light and dark is seen. Next, you need to blend the graphite in a sculpturally manner following the general gesture and movement of the hair. For this you can utilize your fingers, a tissue, or a paper stump. If you utilize a paper stump be careful not to deaden the look. If you utilize your fingers make sure they are dry and also wipe them constantly with a paper towel. Then, utilize your kneaded eraser like a loaded paint brush to pick out the relevant lights. Do not be overly picky here. A more bravura approach creates a sense of life and rhythm into the hair. If you make a mistake just blend the graphite again with your fingers or stump and do it again. Sometimes when you block-in the hair other light parts of the skull pop out. This is one reason why working the skull as a whole is necessary. French braiding is a stunning hair style, but extremely intricate and hard to draw. The purpose is to render these French braids fluidly and with movement. A balancing act is required here: the complexity of the hair’s styling is best handled by first line-rendering the main locks and braids. As you lay out the braids make certain to plumb and carefully size and establish each main lock and braid. When working from a photograph there is the pull to duplicate it down to the smallest detail. You may or may not give in to this pull but you should always make sure that the hair retains its liveliness. However, in most cases, you will not need to map out every detail. Further block-in the darks taking into account the direction and motion of the relevant locks of the hair. The most difficult thing is to refrain from plunging into an region of detail. Not to do this demands mental discipline. Best is to follow a layered approach that progressively piles the arrangement of the hair, lock by lock. You also should soften the edges of the hair line so that it blends into the forehead and sides of the face. Hair does this naturally. Be sure to used sharp pencils because dull pencils lead to dull, dead hairdos. Having first mapped out and hatched-in the relevant locks of hair makes the rendering of the finer areas much easier, but is still labor intensive. You should be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on a hair. Also, keep stepping back from the drawing to maintain an overview of the key light/dark pattern because detailing can result in a flat mess in which the values close in on each other. Restrain yourself from rendering bangs too soon in the process. This helps ensure that the hair and flesh can be unified into a coherent sense of spirit. Sketching hairdos so that it reads naturally and has a rhythmic gesture is hard. Generally it takes as much time and effort to render the hair as it does the face and neck. You must spend as much care in preparing the hair as you would for the remainderof the portrait. If you draw from a model be sure you do the hair before your model takes a rest because the hair will very likely have changed when the break is over. The idea, then, is to devote a whole 20 to 30 minutes of a pose segment to the hair. With these procedures you can be sure that in time your drawn hairdos will look real and lively. Do not forget that rendering hair takes time so that you do not get irritated.
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