Chapter 1 | THE HEAD IN THREE-QUARTER VIEW
In drawn or painted portraits, the person’s head is often turned slightly to the right or left as in the following drawing of a girl. We call that ‘a head in three quarters’. The vertical construction line rotates with the head. The half of the face that is turned away from us and is therefore slightly further away from us, becomes narrower in the drawing than the front half. The vertical line through the middle of the face rotates with the head.
Exercise: Try to copy the young woman in the following drawing, turned to the left or to the right. Start very lightly by drawing the egg shape and the shortened back of the head. Try to get her eyes to look at you as much as possible. If it works, she will always keep looking at you, no matter where you stand.
If you have some difficulty drawing this three quarter view you can use this grid to make it easier. (here 10 x 10 squares). More about using grids in the lesson Handy drawing tips part 1, level 1, chapter 6
We see more or less the same three-quarter pose of a young woman in the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. La Gioconda (her nickname) does not look directly at us, but to a place or person to our right.
There are dozens of examples of how to draw the head in three-quarters. Often circles are used (in my example made light blue) and an added jawline. Under the eyebrows you often see a ‘dent’ because the eye sockets are lying deeper. The skull is round at the top and at the back but somewhat flat at the side.
A person’s head a face can be so far turned away from us that the three quarters’ view has almost become a profile. With the ten-year-old girl Chihiro Ogino from the fabulous animated film Spirited away, you can hardly see the back half of her face with her left eye hidden behind her nose.
EXTRA: try to find and draw a face in three-quarters, from a foto, comic strip, a frame from an animated film or really someone who poses for you. If necessary, use a grid to copy an image.