Try to pick an element as your main focus, I really like eyes because to me they are the windows to the soul (cheesy, yes I know), that’s why I try to portray them with depth and give the character more “life”. Plus it gives the pencil portrait a defining feature and the person viewing it something to focus on. The same concept for any part of a picture…just pick a point to focus on, what you would think as the most important part of the drawing such as eyes, hands….whatever you choose.

I guess I’ve just learned how to understand the shapes of things. Try to look at things differently than what they really are. The more complex the subject is the more likely you will look at it and think “Okay, that is to much work, how do I even begin drawing something like that!” or “I can barely draw a stick figure let alone an actual person.” Well your looking at the subject as a whole and in doing so you will get frustrated and wonder why you even thought you would attempt something that difficult. Here is how my mind works it out. I see the eyes or nose or whatever, not as JUST a nose, or an eye etc. I look at it as circle, circle, and oval. THAT, is the basic structure of the an eye, it is easier to draw more complex things that way. Its hard to draw an eye, its easy to draw 2 circles and an oval. Do you see what I’m getting at? Try to break down the hard complex objects into their most basic form, circles, triangles, ovals, squares etc.

See, that doesn’t sound so hard now does it? Try drawing something thinking like that and send it to me. I would love to see it. Let me know if it helped you at all. I may even post it on my site!

I mainly use a 6B graphite pencil but I notice that I tend to push pretty hard so the lines of my mistakes can show up rather well. To limit the probability of ruining the portrait even before it really begins I started using an HB or 2B pencil and graph out the image. I sketch out the image lightly while also mapping out where the more dramatic shading will go.

When your ready to start shading your hand drawn pencil portrait the one thing I notice when looking at other pencil portraits is to not be afraid to go dark, to many people are scared to use dark shading. The dark and light shading contrast gives the pencil portrait life and dimension.

One of the main tools I use to create a wonderful pencil portrait along with the different variations of graphite pencils is a tool called an eraser-stick, which you use to be able to get at any art store but now you can only buy them from the main supplier Faber Castel in Germany. The box of 20 are around $20-$40 US dollars plus shipping. It is a little investment but well worth it. The tool is a firm eraser that looks like a pencil, wood and all, that you can actually put in a pencil sharpener and sharpen to a point for better precision. Sometimes it has a brush at the other end to sweep away eraser shavings. Using this tool I found that if you go over the darker shading with it, the graphite will get darker and have a gloss. It is also very helpful in creating slight wrinkles in skin because of the firmness and ability to be very precise.  You should get one and try it, you’ll see what I mean.