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Three portraits. |
There are three common ways that
the portrait is drawn: Profile, Straight On, and Three
Quarters. We'll look at each view in turn. First, let's look at the human head in profile. The profile is
when the subject is looking left or right so that only one
side of the face is visible. Many people feel that the profile is the easiest of
the three views to draw because the facial features are very
minimized in relation to the rest of the head. You're
only dealing with one eye instead of two, there's also only
one ear, and half a nose and mouth. I won't dispute that profiles are easier, but the
same problems of proportion happen in all three views, so
let's look at these problems first using profiles.
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Egyptian profile. |
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"fixed" Egyptian profile.
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Here's an ancient example of a profile. The Egyptians were a highly developed culture, but
their depictions of humans were very highly stylized and not really true to life. Look at the photo to the right. Can you see any factors in this painting that would make it look "less realistic"?
The two biggest errors are the eye and the ear. The eye looks more like an eye that is seen from the front, not the side. And the ear itself looks fine, but it's too high up on the head.
These errors aren't confined to this one image, every ear they drew seemed to be too high up on the
head, and they never seemed to see the eye in true profile.
The Egyptians placed the ear so that the bottom of the earlobe fell about to the middle of the nose and the top of the ear ends up above the eyebrow. They seemed to have the general size of ear correct,
it's size is usually from the eye to the bottom of the nose, but they always set the ear too high. The top of the ear should line up with the eye and the bottom should line up
between the nose and mouth. Look at the next illustration to see what a profile with these two errors fixed might look like.
Measuring features on the face to get them in proper
proportion is really important because each person's face is
unique, and has unique proportions. Because of this, you must
measure one feature against another feature on the same face
in order to get the proper proportions for that face. For
example, if you measure on your subject that his ear is the
same length as his nose, in your drawing of this person, his
ear better be the same length as his nose.
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An incorrect profile. |
Even though each face is unique unto itself, there are
still some general guidelines to help you with proper
proportion. Many of the same measurements and proportions
happen on every face, and if you know these "global
measurements and guidelines" you will have a good
starting point for your drawing. Many of the errors that
happen when drawing people happen because the artist isn't aware
of these "global measurements and guidelines", and is
allowing his own mind to fool him with what he thinks he sees.
Look at the profile drawing to the right. It shows how a
beginning artist might draw a profile. It also shows some of
the common errors in drawing the face that artists make. It's
obvious that this profile is "incorrect", but why is it
incorrect? Click on it and I'll show you why.
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