- 1). Select a range of drawing pencils. Look for pencils marked for the weight or density of the lead. Pencils range from hard (9H) to soft (9B). The softer the lead is, the darker it appears on paper. Harder lead is ideal for precision lines and appears light on paper. It's a good idea to have a 5H or 4H on hand for a hard pencil and a 2B, 3B and 7B on hand for your softer pencils. If you prefer, you can use a medium hard grade such as 2H for everything.
- 2). Sketch something easy to get the feel of your pencils. Try drawing a simple face so you can work on shading.
- 3). Draw an oval for the head, two almond shapes for the eyes, and a pear shape for the nose. Then add two small circles at the end of the nose for nostrils, and sketch a mouth with a top lip that resembles the top portion of a heart and a bottom lip as a slightly curved line. Double the curved line for the bottom lip to make it fuller, attaching both lines where the corners of the mouth are.
- 4). Draw two half circles inside the eyes for pupils. Start the half circles at the lower edge of the almond shape and center each one. Draw an eyebrow over each eye and lines for eyelashes.
- 5). Draw the outline for hair, then begin shading and coloring to give your pencil drawing some depth and dimension. Shading is key with pencils. Start by determining texture for the hair. To give your drawing straight hair, color the hair with light strokes and gradually increase to create darker lines within. For curly hair, color small, tight circles until the hair is completely filled in.
- 6). Add shading around the corners of the nose and under the eyes. Use your eraser to smudge the lead to get a smoother look. Lightly color the face of your drawing with a harder pencil, then use a lighter pencil to apply lines to the face for texture. These lines not only give character to your drawing, they help create an age effect.
- 7). Develop your pencil drawings by adding shadow to lift the image away from the paper. If you find the lines of your drawing are too hard or distinct, you can smudge and smooth them with your eraser or the tip of your finger. The more you vary hard and soft lead in your drawings, the more tonal and textural variety your image will have.
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