Guidelines for Pencil Portrait Sketching - The Difficulty with Seeing - By: Alex De Mostafa

For untrained artists the difficulty with seeing lies in the conflict that exists between the actual visual reality of an entity
and the way the mind attempts to represent our perception of this reality on the drawing paper. This attempt always involves the predispostion to draw our iconic preconception instead of the actual reality.

Symbolic preconceptions are part of a subconscious visual language that uses symbols to represent known items. This language of symbols evolved as a mechanism to help us endure as a species. These symbols aid us, for example, to instantly recognize food sources or dangerous predators.

When we observe an unknown entity our subconscious mind instantantly tries to form a new symbol to represent and store the entity in memory. Often starting artists will more correctly sketch unknown items than known ones because they are not yet wedded to the new symbols.

However, when they try to sketch the same entity a second time, it is likely that a more iconic image will emerge because ready to use symbols have already been stored in the mind.

Consider, for example, the word "head". Immediately an picture comes to mind that is iconic for the head. Unfortunately, this symbol is only a schematic picture of a head and is invariably a gross simplification of a actual head. Nevertheless, there is a strong subconscious pull to draw the schematic instead of what we actually see.

It is this inconsistency that artists must learn to conquer. This is particularly a problem for pencil portrait artists. When drawing a portrait the artist must resolve numerous layers of symbols to realize a realistic effect.

We now will describe a very good exercise to learn to overcome the problem of schematic drawing.

We will be drawing from an upside-down image. This way our schematic preconception of the head is interrupted. We will be forced to draw without our schematics. The effect will be a purer drawing experience free from a tainted perception.

As you sketch the lines and block-in the values you will feel quite ill at ease in your drawing. This is a good thing. Do not be concerned with the quality of your work. This is an exercise in seeing.

When working with line and value this way, starting artists often get better outcomes than from the right-side up way. Trust yourself and throughout the exercise only look at your paper image in the upside-down position even though it may feel quite uncomfortable.

You will learn to see and sketch value as shapes and will be able to break down hard edges into short, straight lines instead of the general schematics your mind will assign to the nose, the ears, etc.

Thinking of and naming perceived items will lead you down the garden path of almond shaped eyes, two circles for nostrils, a bunch of lines for hair, cauliflower ears and something that looks like an M sitting on a bowl for a mouth instead of what is actually there.

Artists will never be free of schematic preconceptions. The schematics actually adapt and become more sophisticated. It is only by constantly analyzing and abstracting shape that we are able to sketch realistically.

In this expose we talk about the idea of seeing. We clarify why it is so hard to draw what is actually there. We study how to get around the problem of schematic preconception. An excellent exercise is included.

Download my brand new No Cost Pencil Portrait Sketching Tutorial here: Pencil Portrait Sketching Tutorial. Remi Engels is a practicing pencil portrait draftsman and oil painter and practiced sketching teacher. See his work at Pencil Portraits by Remi: http://www.remipencilportraits.com Visit Tips on Pencil Portrait Sketching - The Trouble with Seeing.