Advice on Pencil Portrait Drawing - Rendering Kids

The drawing of kids demands freshness and directness of purpose. Unfortunately, there are not too many quick and ready rules. Let us just say that children's portraits demand a sharp and patient eye.

For those who intend to do commercial portraiture the good news is that children's portraits can be lucrative. There are very few artists who can capably render kids.

Soft lighting works best for portraits of kids. The kid could be looking toward a intense light source. This sort of light source will illuminate the kid's face and create an introspective facial appearance. The value stretch goes from light to medium with the eyes very dark.

Addressing the facial proportions of kids in a general sense is somewhat of a waste of time. Their facial proportions change dramatically within a time span of six month.

Suffice it to say that the younger the kid is the smaller the face in relation to the skull. The eyes also appear larger although this can be misleading. A kid’s nose can be very difficult to render – there is nothing really to hold onto. And the mouth is very delicate the width of an eye. Again, we must stress that these proportions are only a broad rule and individual face proportions can be different. The above broad rules can be used for comparison purposes when you do your own careful observations of a particular face.

As always, start your drawing by striking the arabesque and then correcting the height/width proportions as necessary.

After establishing the primary facial proportions (i.e., the brow, nose, mouth, etc.) block-in the major light/dark patterns. Then, stump down the graphite using your fingers or a stump. To render and re-shape the lights employ a clean putty eraser.

Now the features are carefully placed, sized and partially drawn. There are two things to remember here:

1. Your pencils must be real sharp, and

2. At this stage, you should never fully complete a feature. Sketch each feature no more than 50%.

Once the features are sized and positioned as best you can, you can now further develop them. Do not neglect the hair and sides of the face. All should be advanced together. As you proceed to render you should always be on the lookout for errors in proportions and value.

In closing, the basic techniques used to render a kid's portrait are of course always the same. Above, we listed most of the differences in size and shape between an adult skull and that of a kid. Your mood when drawing a kid should be one that reflects the innocence and the softness of a kid.

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Download my brand new No Cost Pencil Portrait Drawing Course here: www.remipencilportraits.com/PPDT/pencil-portrait-tutorial.html target="_blank">Pencil Portrait Drawing Course. Remi Engels is a practicing pencil portrait artist and oil painter and skilled sketching teacher. See his work at Pencil Portraits by Remi: www.remipencilportraits.com Visit Instructions on Pencil Portrait Sketching - Rendering Children.

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