How to draw a female face

How to draw a female face to make it realistic, competent and beautiful? This is told by the guru of depicting human portraits, the wonderful artist and curator of drawing courses at Skills Up School Anton Korostov. Take out paper and pencils, tablets and styluses — we will immediately try the theory in practice so that the knowledge is consolidated and the skill is improved. Let's get started!  

Where to start?

  To draw a female face, first we must understand the structure and method of drawing a human head, and only then talk about the features of drawing a female face. We will draw the outlines of the face silhouette and the middle line to control symmetry, make a marking of proportions to correctly position the parts of the face — only this way can we create a picturesque and believable image of a female face, conveying its tenderness and beauty.  

Differences between a female face and a male face

  Drawing female and male faces requires a different approach to details, proportions and the use of color and graphic solutions to emphasize the features and characters of each gender. The female face is often depicted with more gentle and smooth gradients, strokes and shadows are applied carefully and evenly during the drawing process. Female facial skin is soft and smooth, and the features are usually more rounded, the chin is more graceful and the nose is thinner. A woman's eyes are larger and her eyelashes are longer. Eyebrows are thinner and more graceful compared to men's.  

General scheme for drawing a face

  Let's start with the silhouette and mark the masses using the method of large and small circles. In the article «‎How to draw a human face» we have already analyzed and used this method on the example of a male portrait, but let's remember it with the help of a diagram. Draw a vertical line in the middle of our sheet and divide it into three equal segments: two of them will be the diameter of the circle we need to draw.   Find the middle of the entire vertical segment — this will be the eye line level. Draw another smaller circle from the eye line to the lower edge. As a result, we have two circles that will help us determine the mass of the head, and we know where to place the eyes in the future.     Connect the upper and lower circles into one silhouette by sketching with a light sketch line.     At this stage, we have found the dimensions of the head. Now we need to find the face size — it will be smaller in height. Step back from the upper line of the head silhouette about 1/7 of the entire height: you can make a marking like on the diagram, dividing the height of the head into seven parts, but note that the marking should be barely noticeable. Having stepped back one segment from the top, we will find the hairline (HL), the rest of the space is occupied by the face. And now we need to remember the simplest formula: the face in the vertical plane is also divided into three identical segments. It's very simple: the upper segment starts from the hairline to the eyebrows, the second — from the eyebrow line to the base of the nose, the third — from the base of the nose to the lower line of the chin. By the way, now you can very conditionally estimate the silhouette of the ears, which will be equal in height to the second segment.     Let's find the size of the eyes and their location. To do this, divide the head width horizontally into five segments: the middle segment indicates the distance between the eyes, two segments are the width of the eyes themselves, and the distance between the eyes will tell us the width of the nose in its lower part.     We outline the outlines of the nose and eyes and immediately after we make a marking of the lower segment, from the base of the nose to the chin. Divide it into three parts, and the line that cuts off two thirds from the bottom will be the middle of the lips.      

Drawing a female face

  Now that we have figured out the general scheme for drawing a face full face, let's start drawing a female face using a reference. The girl in the photo is depicted in a slight angle from the side and from below — let's keep that in mind. We outline two circles, draw the middle line slightly curved, thereby designating the angle of the head.   Mark three segments — they will determine the position of the hairline, eyebrows, base of the nose and chin. It is necessary to mark the front part not into equal segments, but taking into account the angle of the face: the lower segment, from the chin to the nose, will be the highest, and the upper one — the shortest. Draw the eye line, shifting it above the middle, because its position is also affected by the angle of the head.     We draw the условные outlines of the girl's head based on the marking of auxiliary circles. Try to draw very lightly, without pressing on the pencil, using straighter lines in drawing. Now we need to create a light cutting layout of the shape of the head and face. Do not rush to draw the details of the girl's face ahead of time, try to абстрагироваться from nature and imagine the shape of the head without a hairstyle, since we will draw the hair in the next stages.     When the volume of the head is ready, you can start sketching the silhouette of the hair — their general outlines. Part of the hair will overlap the volume of the head and the front part, so your task is to simplify the silhouette of the hair volume, which lies on the shape of the head and hangs down a little. Try to notice the character of the silhouette without going into details, do not rush to draw curls and individual curls.      

The method of constructive drawing

  In order to draw a girl's face, the constructive drawing method is best suited. Constructive drawing involves simplifying the volume and searching for planes, while details go to the background and are not so important. The form in such a drawing looks more rough and angular, but such practice helps the artist to better understand the shape of complex volumes. Therefore, if you want to convincingly draw human portraits, practice drawing head cuts and master the constructive drawing. Here you can see an example of simplifying the shape of a girl's head. It is not necessary to make such a drawing separately, but we will take this design into account for further work. Let's define the main planes and shapes. For example, the nose has a trapezoidal shape, the eyes have the shape of pyramids, the lips are also quite simple and understandable figures. The face has frontal and lateral planes, tapering towards the chin. The chin has a frontal plane that is slightly tilted. Pay attention to the hair: their mass is what interests us, as this will help to make the hairstyle voluminous. It is also good to study the light and shade modeling of the shape on such cuts.      

Continue drawing a female face

  Now we understand the form better and can start drawing the face of the girl in our drawing. Outline the parts of the face and refine your drawing. Do not forget to change the middle line in the process of drawing, taking into account the change in shape and the addition of new volumes. Watch the symmetry and angle. About how to draw human eyes, we have a separate lesson.     We have got a linear drawing of a female face. You can start to carefully emphasize the volumes of the parts of the face in the drawing with light strokes and soft shading. Make light accents on those places where the shape changes.     Gradually lighten the shadows, work out the volume of the hairstyle, indicating the light and shade boundaries. If the drawing has become too dark or too sharp due to a lot of strokes, you can lightly go over with an eraser and lighten the tone. Do not rush to convey the tone of color and darken the eyes, hair and lips.     At the last stage, you need to check the symmetry, the structure of the shape of the head and hairstyle again, look at the drawing defocused and determine if there are too strong accents that outweigh the composition of the drawing. If everything is in order, you can proceed to the final stage of drawing the girl's face. Strengthen the contrast at the light and shade transition, make special accents on the nose, hair and lips. Additionally, emphasize the eyes with eyelashes on the upper eyelid and shadow under them. Work out the iris, pupil of the eye and highlight on it.     We have drawn a female portrait and learned how to draw a girl's face using the method of constructive drawing. If you want to continue studying the topic, read additional materials on our website or sign up for the course «Portrait sketching». In the course, we study drawing a human portrait step by step, from simple to complex, and make a lot of cool sketches of different people's faces.