If you are the kind of person who identifies yourself as someone who cannot draw a straight line, then the idea of drawing a face may be a little daunting to you. The fact is, everybody has <em><strong>some basic level</strong></em> of drawing skill. I suspect that you are even more capable of drawing a face than you may realize.

Let's look at an example of a face that might be drawn by someone who is considered a beginning artist (a term used throughout this post to include non-artists) with little drawing skill:
<p style="text-align: center;">[start pic of face]</p>
Even if this is what you consider as the extent of your drawing capabilities, this is a good thing! This can be used as a foundation for creating a more impressive face drawing. The reason that some drawings look more professional or more appealing than others is very simple - attention to detail!

The goal of this one lesson is not to take you from a beginning artist to someone who can create a breathtaking portrait drawing that looks like a photograph. That does not happen in one day (although it <strong><em>can happen</em></strong> much sooner than you think).

We are not dealing with any complicated shading or blending techniques here. The goal of this lesson is to bring more attention to detail to what you are already doing - your line drawings. A line drawing is a drawing made up of lines and little to no shading.

The more detail you add to a simple line drawing, the more it will <strong><em>gradually</em></strong> take on a realistic appearance. How do you know which details to add? It all begins by studying faces and different facial features with careful observations.

To help trigger your powers of observation and begin to add those subtle little details to your drawings, I have come up with a list of 15 details beginning artists commonly overlook when they draw a face. Let's see how adding these 15 simple little tweaks to the drawing above can improve our face drawing a bit.
<h3><strong>1. Inner Corners of the Eyes</strong></h3>
Let's look carefully at this image of an eye. What do you notice at the inner corner of the eye?
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo of subject's right eye with arrow]</p>
This pink nodule is often mistakenly called a tear duct. In actuality, the tear ducts are located just above and below it. The technical term for one of these is “lacrimal caruncle”. Regardless of what it should be called, you should always draw this little nodule at the inner corner of each eye.
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with corner]</p>

<h3><strong>2. Rim of the Eyelid</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">All too often, people draw the almond shape of the eye and leave it at that. Then <strong>if</strong> they remember to draw eyelashes, they draw the eyelashes from this border of the eye, leaving a very unnatural look.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[pic of almond shape eye with eyelashes beside it nonexample]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Upon closer examination of an eye, you see a rim of skin around the top and bottom. This rim of skin serves as the top and bottom of the eyelids.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo with arrows]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Be sure to draw this rim around the top and bottom of your eye. Then when you do draw the eyelashes later, they will spring from the eyes more naturally.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with rim]</p>

<h3><strong>3. Highlights in the Eyes</strong></h3>
When you are drawing eyes, you should always be in the habit of drawing the iris and pupil of each eye. Beginning artists very often draw an iris but no pupil. The ones that do draw both tend to leave out a third element - the highlight.
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo with arrow on highlight]</p>
A highlight usually overlaps both the iris and pupil, but it can be located anywhere on the eye depending on the light source. It is often circular but can take on other shapes as well. If I am drawing without a reference photograph, I have always found you cannot go wrong with a circular highlight along the iris-pupil border. If you are not used to doing it, this one little detail alone can make a significant difference to your drawing.
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with highlight]</p>

<h3 style="text-align: left;"><strong>4. Eyebrow Hairs</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">The eyebrow is not one solid clump of mass. Therefore, you should not draw eyebrows as a harsh border and shaded in with solid color, like this...</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[eyebrow nonexample]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Rather, the eyebrow is a collection of individual hairs that happen to be living close together, flowing together in generally the same direction.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo of eyebrow]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Instead of drawing an eyebrow, draw the hairs that make up the eyebrow. Use pencil strokes the same length as the individual hairs of each eyebrow. Draw in the same direction as the hair growth. Give the border a natural appearance by making evident some loose strands that are independent of each other.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with eyebrow]</p>

<h3><strong>5. Eyelash Length</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">Eyelashes are not perfectly straight, they are not equally spaced from each other, and they are not all the same length like in our example...</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[eyelash nonexample]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Eyelashes curve and taper from the rim of the eyelid (remember that rim we drew earlier?). Some are intertwined and other grow away from each other. More importantly, some are long and some are short.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo of eyelashes]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Carefully study your subject to get the length of the eyelashes just right. If you are not drawing from a single reference photograph, look at several examples of eyelashes in photos of different people. I like to use the eyelids as a reference for how long I should draw the eyelashes. For example, do the top eyelashes extend beyond the top of the eyelid? In the example above, many of them do. Let's try to fix our drawing to create a similar appearance.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with eyelashes]</p>

<h3><strong>6. Top of the Bridge of the Nose</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">The way the top of the nose protrudes from the face varies from person to person. Sometimes it is very subtle, other times not so much. You do not have to be drawing a profile picture to see this. You can even get a sense of this with a direct frontal view of someone. Just look at these two examples. Even the depth of the eye sockets gives a sense of protrusion.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo of woman top nose beside man top nose]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">When many novice artists draw faces, so much attention is given to the bottom of the nose, leaving the top of the nose neglected. Keep this top region of the nose in mind when you draw faces. Think about how the bridge of your subject’s nose connects to the bottom of the forehead. Indicate if there is an obvious crease or slope. Consider how the eye sockets curve into the bridge.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with top of nose]</p>

<h3><strong>7. Wings of the Nose</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">As mentioned previously, more attention is often given to the bottom area of the nose. That being said, it still remains a major point of frustration for a lot of beginners. Drawing the nostrils can be especially bothersome if you are drawing two dark circles and wondering why the nose does not look right...</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[nostril nonexample]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The nostrils are not just two holes poked into a single lump of flesh. The nose has several components that work together to form the nostrils. The major players in the creation of the nostrils are the "wings" of cartilage that curve from the tip and form those openings that we so lovingly call nostrils.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[photo of nose w/ drawn curved guideline along nostril]</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Think about how these wings are to be shaped. Draw each wing so that it looks folded and leaves an opening. This opening will be a more natural-looking nostril for your drawing.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">[face drawing with nostril]</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">*****AD BLOCK FOR LEAD MAGNET*****</p>
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