Secret of Pencil Drawing

Secret Of Pencil Drawing From Photographs

Brought To You By Christopher Sia www.PencilPortraitMastery.com

www.PencilPortraitMastery.com

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The secret of pencil drawing from photographs is all about seeing what others can’t see by comparing the tones and apply them to your pencil drawing to create pencil drawings with high contrast. The Christopher Sia’s way: Seeing what others can’t see-> compare the tones-> apply to your pencil drawing-> high contrast pencil drawing-> realistic pencil drawing I will take this reference picture and my drawing for example:


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Now, if you think that this pencil portrait drawing is nice, it actually lacks contrast. This is because when you start shading, you do not know which part of the reference picture is darker. You can only see which part should be darker by comparing the tones once you have finished drawing.


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Let’s look at both the reference picture and my pencil portrait drawing again:

Compare every part and the overall tone. You can see that the eyebrow, moustache, facial hair, hair, nose and some part of the face should be darker.


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I start by darkening the overall tone of the left eyebrow.

After darkening the eyebrow, compare the tone around the left eye. You can see that the overall tone of the iris in the reference picture is actually darker than the eyebrow.

Next, darken the overall tone of the iris and pupil. Once you’ve darken it, you will see that the eyelashes on the upper eyelid should be darker than the iris.


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Darken the overall tone of the eyelashes.

Then, compare the details of the eye. You will see that the small details inside the eye and the eyelashes on the lower eyelid should be darker as well.

Darken the small details in it and the lower eyelashes.


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Right now, you can see that the overall tone of the left eye is darker than the right eye


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Then, do the same to the right eye starting by comparing and darkening from the eyebrow, iris, to eyelashes.

It’s not necessary to start by darkening the eyes, as long as you start with one part that is obviously darker than the other parts. Now that you have the eyes to start by comparing tones, start to compare tones with the eyeball and the skin around the eye.


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In the reference picture, can you see that the left eyeball is actually lighter than the skin?

The image below is approximately the overall tone of the eyeball and the skin.


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After comparing it with one tone, look around the area that you’re comparing and see if there is another tone to compare with. In the image below, the shadow is the darkest in that area. A is lightest, B is medium, and C is darkest.

In my drawing below, the left eyeball is actually almost the same tone with the skin. So, I will then darken the skin around the left eye.


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Other than just comparing different tones, you can also compare the overall tone that looks almost the same like area B in the image below. You can also see that area A is darker than area B.

Look at the image below, can you see which area of the skin should be lighter or darker?


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Area A is the lightest, area B has almost the same overall tone and area C is the darkest.

After comparing the overall tones, I darken them on the left side of the face.

Let’s look at the reference picture again. Focus on looking at the nose and the left side of the face. Can you now see that the overall tone of the nose is actually darker than the left side of the face?


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By looking back at my drawing, the overall tone of the nose is almost the same as the left side of the face. So after comparing, I now know that I should darken the nose more.


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After comparing the areas and knowing the nose should be darker, I then compare the overall tone of the details in the nose.

If you can observe the image below, area B is actually slightly darker than area A. The easier way to observe is to compare the tones nearby. If you focus on just one small area, then you will easily see the tone difference in that area. This is how you observe the tone in details.


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Then, continue observing and comparing the tone for the nose. Area B is darker than area A.


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Can you see that area C is actually slightly darker than area B, while area D is darker than area C?


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And that’s not all, both areas of D are almost the same in tone. Other than that, both areas of E are actually darker than area D. If you can observe 3-4 tones, that will be good enough for drawing realistic pencil portraits.

Obviously, area F is the darkest part. I use the nose of this reference picture for you to observe because it has more than 6 different tones. Some of the areas may have the same tone so this is what you’re learning. Observe and compare.


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Now, look at the red circle area below, can you see the tone differences?


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Area 1 of highlight is actually lighter than area A.


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In area 2, it is almost the same with area B but between area B and C.


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Area 3 is darker than area 2, while area 3 is almost the same tone with area C but slightly darker.


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Area 4 is darker than area 3 and area E. It seems like there are many different tones and may look complicated, but you really don’t have to draw them exactly. I’m just giving the idea about how you can observe and compare. As I said, if you can manage to draw 3-4 different tones, then your pencil portrait drawing will look realistic. After comparing and darkening the nose, the overall tone of the nose is now darker than the left side of the face which makes the nose stands out more.


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. Then I continue by comparing tone on the right side of the skin around the eye and face. You must observe large area of highlight as the tone might be different sometimes.


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After comparing and darkening the tone on the right side of the face, my drawing looks like this now.


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Then I continue to darken the tone to the bottom and also darken the forehead.


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And now, I darken the hair by comparing it with facial hair. If there are no facial hair in your pencil portrait drawing, you can always compare with the iris or something else that is darkest in the portrait. Next, I also darken the facial hair.


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After comparing and darkening, can you see the difference of a low contrast pencil portrait and a high contrast pencil portrait?

You can always apply what you’ve learned here to other pencil drawings as long as you’re drawing from a photograph or a reference picture. Always remember to observe and compare the tones.


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Secret of Pencil Drawing