I have been going to weekly life drawing classes for three years now. I am very happy I am making some progress and I am also still learning and sometimes struggle with proportions. I find it helpful when drawing a portrait to have some rough guidelines for the location of important landmarks on the average person. Of course there can be a great deal of individual variations, but knowing what these variations are compared to the “average” basic proportions of the face can help with achieving a likeness.
So what are the basic proportions of the face that can be useful when drawing a portrait?
Symmetry of the face
It is helpful to trace a vertical line in the middle of the face before you start drawing so you can refer to that line when drawing the features. Nobody is totally symmetrical and if you can spot some asymmetry on your model and render it accurately, it will help a lot with likeness.
Eyes in the middle of the face
The first most obvious thing to know when drawing a portrait is that the eyes are situated halfway between the top of the head and the chin. Depending on the hair style, you might have to guess where is the top of the head. We give a lot of importance to the eyes so we intuitively have a tendency to place them higher on the face.
Space between the eyes
If the model is looking straight at you, the average person has a space of one eye in between their eyes and one eye on the side of each eye.
The face is about 5 eyes wide.
Placing the ears
The ears are situated in an average person somewhere between the top of the eyes and the beginning of the eyebrow arch.
The nose
You can divide the face into 3 equal thirds:
one third goes from the hairline to the eyebrow
one third goes from the eyebrow to the lower part of the nose
one third goes from the nose to the chin
You can divide the face in 3 thirds to help find the length of the nose.
As always there are individual variations, on my profile picture you can see that I have a low hairline.
The outside of the nose usually aligns with the inside corner of the eye.
Mouth and chin
The under part of the lower lip is situated halfway in the space between the end of the nose and the chin.
Usually the outside corners of the mouth align with the pupils when the person is looking straight forward.
Originally from France, I have been living in North Vancouver, Canada for the past 20 years.
My work has been collected and exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. I am also part of the Art Rentals and sales program of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Many of my paintings have been published in Art books and magazines (Artist Magazine, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Acrylic Magazine, International Artist Magazine). I wrote 2 art instruction books with North Light/F+W Books.
I have been writing for the last 5 years for my blog: paintingdemos.com, that has a mailing list of about 10 000 subscribers and about 20 000 visitors per month.
I am an active member in the community, as a co-founder of the North Shore Art crawl, a co-founder of a weekly life drawing group, a board member of the North Vancouver Arts Council, and have been invited as a juror for public art, art grants and juried exhibitions. You can read more about my collaborations here.
So so very helpful, thank you. The one other thing I have trouble with is how wide should a face be and the width of the features? Any help with that? Thank you again.p
Thanks Ruby 🙂
I know, hands and feet are quite tricky. We joke about this in life drawing class and sometimes wish the model would wear socks and mittens:)
As we many things related to drawing, I believe one of the answers is practice. You can check out that post: https://paintingdemos.com/hands-and-feet-to-yourself/
You will see that the more you draw , the more most problems will solve themselves just by practicing.
Comments (11)
Jane
So so very helpful, thank you. The one other thing I have trouble with is how wide should a face be and the width of the features? Any help with that? Thank you again.p
Ruby Bou
Half an hour until I go to an open life drawing group… your tutorials really help me prepare! Hands and feet are my problem… any suggestions?
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Ruby 🙂
I know, hands and feet are quite tricky. We joke about this in life drawing class and sometimes wish the model would wear socks and mittens:)
As we many things related to drawing, I believe one of the answers is practice. You can check out that post: https://paintingdemos.com/hands-and-feet-to-yourself/
You will see that the more you draw , the more most problems will solve themselves just by practicing.
Karen Conner
This is some excellent information! Thanks for sharing it.
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Karen, I am glad to hear that 🙂
Nancy
Always the nose, I would make it too long.
Sometimes the eyes would be too big as well.
Great simply tips, thank you!
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Nancy, yes I agree the nose can be very challenging especially on a view from the front 🙂
Michelle Mathey - POMI
Great informative post! I can use all the help that I can get – Thanks!
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Michelle 🙂
Pat
Timely! My summer watercolor class is all about portraits. I’ll share this great resource with everyone. Thanks!
Sandrine Pelissier
Thanks Pat!