Making a Portrait

A person who has a love for art is the most loved person sent to this world by God. God gifts the skills of an artwork only to those people who have the most humble, honest and soft hearts with pure feelings. The person is gifted naturally by God and it is up to that person how he would portray his skills to the world because his activities would also motivate other people who are in the process of learning arts. Artworks are imaginative, creative and the artist also puts his feelings into the art to give an emotional and visual power to an observer. Artists do not plan his work, he just set his mood, his feelings, and emotions into the work that he is performing. Most importantly the artist never works for an extra income, he works because it is his passion, it is his obsession, he is addictive to the world of art.

Now I shall discuss with you how to make a portrait. Drawing or making a person’s face may sound quite difficult in the first attempt, however, it can really be a simple method if you give your full concentration and the process needs a lot of patience, only then you can create a portrait of a person. It is a simple process if you approach it systematically, all you need to do is put your full focus when you are attempting to draw a face.

You need to keep a medium, that is a person’s photo in front of you to set an example and medium to sketch the portrait at the first attempt. Because drawing a portrait without a medium would end up with an unstructured figure of the face, this is why I recommend using a photograph or an example of a person's face where you can apply and draw the face with very necessary details and proper observation.

Materials Required:

1. Pencil (HB pencil)
2. Eraser
3. Crayons (wax crayons/pastels)
4. Sketch Pens
5. A4 sheet paper

Method:

Here follows the step-wise instruction for making a portrait ( 'How to draw a Face' ):

For the facial structure:

1. The easiest way to draw a person’s face is the rough sketch of the figure and to draft the posture of the face by looking into the person’s face or photograph.
2. The first step is to lightly draw the rough sketch of the face, that is drawing the guidelines in the face.
   
3. Start with the upper part at first that is make an oval shape for the head. Then a rough circle for the entire face, and lastly add a sharp curve at the bottom.
   
4. Slowly bring down to the neck, where you can draw two short and straight lines roughly.
5. The features of the portrait have been figured out. Now we shall focus on the detail parts of the face.
6. First, we need to draw the eyes. Eyes are the main speaking part in a portrait, therefore at first, we need to sketch the eye for detail.
7. To draw the outline of the eye, start drawing the basic fish shaped structure. Make the inner corner which is next to the nose lower than the outer corner.
   
8. Now draw the inner circle for the lens of the eye. Then draw the upper and lower eyelid.
9. Slowly bring down a curvy line to draw the nose.
   
10. Sharpen the detailing of the posture in the face with the help of curvy lines.
    

For coloring the face:

1. In the coloring process, firstly use the darker shades to brighten the detailed parts of the face using sketch pens of appropriate colors.
   
2. Now use a black/brown crayon for the outlines near the nose, eyes, eyebrow. Then use a flesh tint color for the forehead, cheeks and nose area.
3. Detail the hair part with a black and brown crayons with curvy lines.
4. Color the collar part with brown color for detailing and then add the flesh tint color crayon.
5. Finally to give it a sharply detailed structure use the flesh tint color wax crayon to highlight the whole facial part.
   

This is how I made the portrait of a Superstar and this is my heartfelt tribute to the ‘King of Bollywood’ for his birthday (2nd Nov). I’ve been watching all his movies since my childhood, I almost had a craze for him when I was just a kid after watching his movie ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ and one fine night I looked at the stars and wished to either meet him or make a commercial advertisement with him. No doubt he is an intense, extremely versatile actor and his movies depict a lot of romance, feelings, emotions, love, respect, friendship etc.

Well, this is about ‘Shahrukh Khan’ and the portrait I made took me exactly 1 ½ hour for the drawing, shaping, sketching and giving it a final touch altogether. This is what the final portrait looks like after the completion.

You need to have a complete focus for the activity, also the willingness and love for art. The same process can be followed to draw any other facial structures of either great personalities, your loved ones or you may sketch out even your own face by keeping your photograph as the medium for drawing.

Paromita Pramanick ©2017. All Rights Reserved.