Art of Portrait Drawing

You’ll Love This Portrait Drawing Book If:

• You love to draw portraits of your friends & family
• You want to pick up new tricks for painting from life
• You want to get technical advice for setting up a successful portrait

Follow along with Joy Thomas as she takes you step-by-step through helpful portrait drawing tutorials & lessons in Art of Portrait Drawing. Soon you’ll be creating more realistic portraits. These helpful portrait drawing tips will give you the tools to translate a variety of subjects to the paper. Learn how to draw a portrait that is correctly proportioned, naturally posed and shaded and blended masterfully.

Learn about the most popular portrait drawing techniques such as Gestalt and Naturalistic, then put your new knowledge to the test with exciting portrait drawing exercises. Understand the techniques behind drawing a full face, ¾ face and profile and you’ll be ready to draw portraits that pop!

In Art of Portrait Drawing You’ll Learn:

• How to draw a portrait using common drawing tools
• Tips & techniques for drawing facial features, gestures and facial contours
• How to light & pose your subject & create proportions and strong designs

Check Out This Excerpt From Art of Portrait Drawing:

Negative Space:

Shapes are vital to gestalt thinking. It’s the shapes of light and dark, that contribute to the drawing to create the final image. This includes the positive space—the shapes that make up the sitter’s form—but also negative space. Negative space is the empty area that exists around positive shapes.

When drawing negative space, look for the shapes formed by the space around, or between, different elements of the subject. The positive form will emerge as you draw the negative shapes. Attention to the placement of negative space is very important to the overall design of a composition. It can be a way to plan a larger pattern that relates to the golden mean.

A Word From the Author

"For most of my life I have been on a quest to become a better artist. It has taken over twenty years to accumulate the basic knowledge that I am sharing in this book. Since I could not possibly include everything there is to know about portraiture, I decided to touch on the information that has proved to be the most life-changing for me. I wish someone had given me a comprehensive guide like this when I was first attempting to draw portraits. It would have certainly hastened my development and saved me from many years of ’re-inventing the wheel. ’ " — Joy Thomas

What Other Artist’s Are Saying:

"This is THE book to have for portrait drawing! Joy is a talented artist with excellent tips for building your skills." — Vicky McLain

"I love this book and I think she is a beautiful artist and Author. It is so easy to read and follow her directions and you will be a great artist. It's one I am planning to buy ASAP." — Roberta Dayberry