Chapter 2 | OTHER POSITIONS OPF THE HEAD

In the lesson Heads and faces part 2 I ended with a portrait in which you see the face not only slightly turned but also a bit from below. In such a case, very light construction lines can come in handy because before you know it, you will draw the position incorrectly at first and then you will keep wondering why it just won’t work.

Here are some tips if you want to learn to draw a slightly different position than exactly from the front, side or three-quarters. A great help are construction lines. They tilt or rotate with each pose!

Exercise 1: Draw a head slanted to the left and slanted to the right. Use the construction lines.

The head tilted.

Exercise 2: Draw a head that is bent backwards and a head that is bent forwards. Use the construction lines that bend/turn with the head. When you draw a head from below, the upper half becomes much smaller. You can clearly see the upper lip and nostrils. When you draw a head from above, the lower half becomes smaller. You can now better see the skullcap, the lower lip and the bridge of the nose.

EXTRA 1: If you draw kind of a a globe, you can try out funny faces in all kinds of positions.

EXTRA 2: With the tips from this lesson, you can try to draw yourself or someone else in an original pose that you like (or that your model prefers). In the following (self)portrait, the head is turned slightly and pointed downwards, which means that he has to look up a bit to look us straight in the eye.