The mouth, like the nose, must be seen as a shape and not as a contour. Drawing the mouth involves all the elements of shading: cast shadow, halftone, shadow edge, reflected light, and full light. He..

Composing a montage is somewhat like composing a collage. On one piece of paper you put together any number of related subjects in such a way that they form a agreeable composition. However, instead o..

Cropping is a composition technique that displays a subject within the borders of your paper and often involves a truncation of some parts at the edges of the subject. For example, part of a hat or an..

Backgrounds are useful to guide and enhance your vision of how you want to represent your subjects. Backgrounds can soften the presentation of your subject or make the presentation more energetic or d..

When it comes to multiple subjects in one pencil portrait drawing, there are two possibilities: (1) all subjects appear in one photograph; (2) the subjects appear in different photographs. When all s..

Composition refers to the manner in which your subjects are positioned relative to each other on the drawing ground. More formally, it is the arrangement of forms and spaces within the format of the p..

Drawing hands takes much practice. Hands are typically quite complex with many smooth transitions between darks and lights. Shapes overlap and need to be studied very carefully to yield acceptable rea..

Drawing hair is not all that difficult but it does take quite a bit of time to make the result look convincing and natural. In fact, it usually takes two times longer to do the hair than it does to do..

As with all features of the human face, it is important that we do not draw the preconceived ideas we have about eyes. The eyes are the windows to a person’s soul and reflect much of the emotion..

Drawing ears is not that easy. There are many different parts to an ear. However, here is where working with a refined grid can help you enormously. If you work with a small grid, the problem is reduc..

A man’s mustache or a beard usually has lots of fullness. Therefore, it must be built up in layers. It is the superposition of layers that will create the impression of fullness and thickness. A..