How to Draw a Face - Basic Proportion

I started my art journey a year back and I had a lot of difficulties with drawing faces. Since I’m a self-taught artist I thought to share what I’ve learned so far.

Before drawing a face simply, you can have a mirror and look at your face carefully and understand your face proportions. Guess the measurements in between both eyes, eye and nose space, nose and mouth space, and finally mouth and chin. You’ll get a better idea about the face because you can’t find any better example than your own face.

If you want you can practice drawing one by one of your face sections separately to be an expert and it will help you to understand to draw faces correctly.

There are many different shapes of faces. But the forehead and jawline always give a basic shape to the face. When you draw a face you can stylize the shape of the face as you want. It will take time for you to understand your art style, but don’t worry about that, just keep learning and practicing.

As a beginner, you can keep the basic structure of the face for your reference and it will help you to draw the face correctly.

Here I’ve given the structure that I used at the start and still I keep this as my reference. Maybe this will not help you but you can make your own structure by using this. 

 

The above structure helps you to draw face proportions well and also the shape of the face. 

 

I think now you have an idea of How to draw a face correctly.

 

If we summarized.

• First look at your face through the mirror.
• Check the measurements of face Sections.
• Make your own structure with a circle and vertical and horizontal lines.
• Start to draw a face with a jawline, eyebrows, eyes, nose, ear, and mouth.
• Finally, add little touch-ups to level up your art according to your own style.

 

Always do experiments with the things you learn and keep practicing. Do not think too much it will stress you out. If you have a good internet connection and also an “interest in learning” there are so many resources (articles, videos, courses) to learn. No one is perfect from the beginning but PRACTICE MAKES THE PERFECT. So don’t be afraid to do mistakes and to draw ugly faces just keep doing it. You will get there real soon.

 

Cheers !

Chamila