For a portrait artist, drawing a child's face is particularly challenging, but also rewarding. Children's faces, with their bright, large eyes and innocent smiles can warm the hardest heart, and it is immensely satisfying to produce a good portrait of such a beautiful subject. When drawing a person's face, it is important to look at the individual, and not try to fit the face into some ideal set of proportions. Carefully observing the main forms and placing the features really needs to be done according to the size and shape of each person's head, as despite our basic anatomical similarity, small variations in bone structure characterize the individual. The canon of ideal proportions is useful when trying to become familiar with the head structure, but is otherwise of limited use. This is particularly true when drawing children, as their soft bones and rapid growth dramatically changes their head structure. A baby's forehead is proportionately larger than an adults. The halfway point on an adult is just below the eyes; with a baby, you'll find the middle of the eyes is about 3/7ths of the way up the face. The first 7th gives you the lower lip, the next places the nose.

Block in the face using the same approach as an adult's face, making a ball for the head and adding the face plane. Sketch contours across the face plane indicating the position of the features. At this point, pay careful attention to a long or short nose, the size of the chin, and so on, ajusting the placement of your contours accordingly
Choice of materials is important when drawing children. In this example, coarse sketching paper has made it difficult to acheive smoothly modeled tones. Damage to the paper surface makes the eyes appear flat and lifeless, as highlights cannot be lifted out, with the small scale of the drawing making further working difficult. Despite a promising start, I've abandoned the drawing, to try again on some Bristol board, at a slightly larger scale.


When drawing a child's features, remember than often 'less is more'. Don't be tempted to outline every detail. Often leaving the middle of the lower lid white, like a highlight, will help to brighten the eyes. The bottom edge of the lower lip often blends into the skin tone. Key point to remember:

Don't use a flash photograph. The flash flattens the gentle curves of a child's face, giving you nothing to model.
Beware of small, fuzzy snapshots. You can't draw what you can't see.
Avoid harsh outlines. Sketch softly.
Use a full range of value and shade skin tones carefully
Use a good, smooth paper and range of pencils
Reserve whites carefully - especially in the eyes.
Try to avoid overworking. Keep your drawing fresh and light

Pencil Drawing and Mark-Making
In this pencil drawing lesson, we'll focus on the importance of mark-making. Mark-making is the expression we use to describe the process of applying pencil to paper. You can improve your pencil drawing skills by carefully considering your pencil and how it hits the page. Controlling and exploiting the possibilities of the mark is an important step in developing as an artist.

Keep Your Pencils Sharp
Chisel-point or blunt pencils are useful for some techniques, but for most pencil drawing, keep your pencil sharp. Don't worry about 'wasting' graphite in the sharpener - better than wasting your drawing efforts! Brighten the point by rubbing the side of the pencil on scrap paper between sharpenings. If you need a darker line, use a softer pencil, and be aware that a softer pencil goes blunt quickly.

Use a Variety of Line:
When drawing lines, either in a linear drawing or within a texture in a tonal drawing, note that you can vary the weight of the line by lifting the pencil or pressing harder.

This might seem obvious, but it is important, and most people don't exploit lineweight enough. Note the example above, which shows how lifting the pencil towards the end of the stroke can be used to give a grassy or fluffy effect. It can be useful to reduce the weight as the pencil is applied at the start of the stroke, rather than dropping it straight into full pressure.
Achieving Even Shading:
A mechanical side-to-side shading motion, with each stroke ending below the last as the hand is moved down the page creates unwanted bands of tone through the shaded area. To prevent this, work back and forth over the same area, randomly varying the spot where the pencil-point changes direction. Or, try using a fine circular motion. This gives a different texture.

Control the Direction of Marks:
Don't let your shading just follow the curve of your arm as you move it across the page. Use direction to describe your object. Follow the form, or create an edge using contrasting direction in two planes. A casual-looking but carefully executed effect of shading everything in one direction can also look effective. Direction direct the viewer's eye or create energy. Even randomness is often carefully considered, in order to look 'artfully dishevilled' rather than 'scruffy'. Where are your marks going?

The Art is in the Mark:
The marks you make on the paper are like the notes played by a musician. No matter how good the written music, if the 'notes' are carelessly played, the result will be ugly. Likewise, by thinking about the kind of mark on your paper, you can make your idea as beautiful or dramatic as you choose. Is it a lyrical, gentle, flowing idea? Let your pencil strokes reflect that feeling. Often the subject (a spiky dried flower, or a curving vase) or model (a wrinkly older person, or a smooth-faced child) will imply a certain kind of handling. Take a critical look at all the little marks you make, as well as your overall composition. Those marks are your notes. Make them sing.