Tips on Pencil Portrait Drawing - Planes in Portrait Drawing - By: Alex De Mostafa

Most people have the set concept that the skull is more or less formed like an egg. In fact, the skull is much more rectangular than we think. The egg concept is one of those simplified set symbols the mind uses as a means for quick identification.

Most beginning students will usually render the face on paper as a flat disk or oval which it is not. Also, compared to the full skull, the face is quite tiny particularly in babies. Your hand can fit the full face. Place that same hand on top of your skull and you will experience at once how big your skull really is.

To grasp planes and thus obtain a sculptural sensibility in your drawing you must grasp and use simple geometric forms.

Generally, the skull can be framed within a square box. More rightly, this square box should be adapted to a phalanx-like box with the face on the smallest side. The skull tapers towards the front which is the face. This is the fundamental shape of the skull in the frontal view.

In the profile view the skull is generally a cube. The difference is the facial angle (the "muzzle") that slopes slightly forward at the chin. In the 7/8 profile, the cube has simply been rotated in space.

Again, it is very essential to think about the skull in terms of simple geometric forms. Once you have established the big simple forms you can start situating the smaller forms inside the big ones. Very soon that group of simple forms becomes quite complex and starts resembling a skull.

Keeping the above in mind you can start with drawing the construct which is the entire outside contour of the skull, hair included. Then you break down the construct into its different parts such as the hair, ear, jaw and neck.

As you block-in the darks and think of the skull as a collection of simple geometric solids you will by now begin to see the 3-dimensional effect, even at this early stage.

The key is to think simply and big. At this early stage, do not pay attention to the minutia - they tend to delude your sense of distance and direction.

Once the major entities are established, situating the features (eyes, nose, etc.) becomes relatively easy. However, if you do not place those entities properly you will never be successful.

The frontal view of the portrait poses a unique test. If you are not careful you can end up with a flat, two-dimensional face. In this view, the plane changes are often quite subtle and difficult to place.

Be sure to note all plane changes in this frontal view and draw them carefully in your drawing:

- Showing the forward tapering of the sides of the skull is major to reaching a subtle 3-dimensional result in this frontal view.

- The front of the face lies more or less in one plane.

- The plane of the foreskull changes direction as you move towards the top of the skull.

- The plane along the cheek has a different direction than the adjoining one along the temple.

The idea is to carefully observe the directions of all the various planes that make up the skull and take these differences into account when you sketch. If you do, your sketches will possess a sculptural, 3-dimensional sensibility. It is not necessary to sketch out the geometry of the actual planes, but the differences in direction must be clearly rendered.

In closing, it is very major that you are aware of the fact that a model's skull consists of planes of changing bearings and is not just an egg. This sculptural structure should be reflected in your drawing because it is major to the likeness and to the illusion of 3-dimensionality.

In this article we discuss the sculptural structure of the skull. Realizing that the skull is built up from separate planes is critical to get a good likeness and the illusion of 3-dimensionality.

Download my brand new complementary pencil portrait sketch tutorial here: Pencil Portrait Drawing Tutorial. Remi Engels is a practicing pencil portrait artist and oil painter and expert drawing teacher. See his work at Pencil Portraits by Remi: http://www.remipencilportraits.com Visit Tips on Pencil Portrait Sketching - Discrete Flat Areas in Portrait Sketching.