How To: Draw a Face Part I: Eye

Okay, here we are on to the next part of the human figure! I'm going to help you with the most challenging part of the body(at least for me) the face. I was going to do this all in one post but as I wrote, I realized this is going to take to many words so, we'll go one feature at a time. The first feature of the face that we will do is the eye.

Supplies:
1 pencil
1 piece of paper
An image of someone's eye that you want to draw(optional, but it will help! A LOT!)
If you are a perfectionist(like me) you will also need a big eraser

Okay, I'm going to just start off with my head already drawn. (If you need help with this, look at my other How To)

Now, the line that we drew three quarters of the way down on the circle on the head is where the eyes are going to be. Your eyes are pretty much in the center of your head. Lot's of people draw their eyes too high up and the forehead is completely forgotten. So remember to give your person a forehead and to draw your eyes in the center of your head.

To draw the eyes, we want to start with the basic shape of the eye. Normally eyes are some what of an almond shape, but it depends on the emotion of the person you're drawing. My model that I'm drawing is happy, so the eye will have a little bit of a different shape then a 'straight face' person. To start, we just want to draw the outline of the eye, remember to include the tear duct. (It's okay if it looks a little creepy right here...we are just starting!)

Now we are going to draw the iris (the colored part of the eye). You don't want to see the top of the iris unless the person is frightened or alarmed. You are just pretty much drawing a a circle. Because I'm drawing someone who is smiling, my iris takes up pretty much all of the eye so there is not much white.

Next we are going to draw the pupil. This is the black in your eye. Normally you will have a bit of a highlight from some light in the distance and you want to be able to capture that. If you leave the eye without a highlight the eye looks dead and life less. (Sorry these pictures look so creepy...it turns out much better in the end!)

Okay, now I'm going to add the detail in the iris. Eyes have lot's of different detail and this is when I picture comes in handy.  You want to draw a really thin zig zag where the zig zag goes in towards the pupil. Around the iris there is a very dark line that you need to include. Around the pupil, the zig zag is much darker than in the center of the iris and the zig zag is also dark around the outside of the iris. There is also a shadow towards the eye lids.

Now we are going to make the pupil a little darker. (You might have already done this) You want the pupil to be darkest at the top of the eye(by the eyelid) and darkest around the highlight. This will add emphasis. Also, we will be adding shadows. You want your shadows to be around the edges of the eyes to create a 3D form. Shade around by the tear ducts to show the difference between eye and tear duct.

Now add the eyelids. They will be wrinkly but that's okay! If you are afraid that this might make your person look old you can add less detail. If you want to add the detail, yay for you! (If it doesn’t work, well...we will erase.) The more smily or elderly your person is, the more wrinkles you will have one your face. If your person is more straight faced then they won’t have too many wrinkles unless they are elderly. My person is smiling so they have more wrinkles.

When you are drawing the eyelashes you want to keep them smooth and have them all flowing in the same direction. Unless your person is wearing mascara, the eyelashes are not that high up in the air and are somewhat faded.
Towards the outside of the eye, near the edge of the head, the lashes should go outwards. My friend gave a a very helpful hit that they go this way (. As they come to the center they are more of a straight line like this: l. As they reach the tear duct, they face opposite of the other side of the eye, like this ). My person isn't wearing mascara and you can barely see her eyelashes so it looks as if she has none.

Now for our last step we will draw the eyebrows. Your eyebrows should flow one way. They have individual hair and are not squares or rectangles. They might be closer to your eyes or they could be further away in a more questioning expression.

Well, I'm sorry this is a sad post but I am getting very tired, so I'll be signing off for now!!! I hope this has helped. If you would like me to help more, leave a comment of what you didn't understand or if I need to explain one of the steps more! Thanks!!!

How To: Draw a Person Part l

Can you draw the human figure? You might have answered that question with a simple,  No or you might have thought, Do stick figures count? (Sorry, but stick figures do not count). Lot's of people, sorry, MOST people (including me) have a hard time drawing the human figure. I have learned a little bit and so I'm going to help enlighten you with the basics!

So these are the supplies that you'll need:
1 pencil
1 piece of paper
An image of someone you want to draw (optional)
(If you are a perfectionist like me, you'll need a big eraser too!)


First draw a circle. This is going to be the top part of the head. Draw a line about two thirds of the way down your circle.

Then draw the jawline. If you are drawing a male, make it more boxy. If you are drawing a female, make it smoother.

Draw a little circle under the jaw line. This will be your neck.

Now draw a wide ellipse (a wide oval). This is your shoulders. If you are drawing a female, you want the oval to be about two heads wide and if you are drawing broader shoulders (for a male) you want to make the shoulders between two and a half heads wide to three heads wide for really broad shoulders.

Now at the end of your ellipse, draw two little circles. This is the start of your arm/shoulder.

Draw the upper part of your arm on each side. Just draw straight lines. (If you want something more complex, draw the muscles in the arm. Guys arm's normally are more defined by muscle, but girls have a little too. Right now I'm just doing the basics so I won't go into detail about that right now. I will later though) Now draw the upper torso (we'll come back to the rest of the arms latter). For a female you will have the bottom of the chest 'tapper in' and for a male, it goes in a little, but not much. 

To draw the stomach, draw a circle under the chest/upper torso.

Now we are going to draw the lower torso/hip. We are going to draw a shape like a trapezoid, but it will be a lot smoother. Females have more shape so the lower torso starts smaller, and ends wider. Males lower torso is more like a square, not too much like a trapezoid, but a little bit like one.

Now to the legs. First draw two circles under the lower torso. This is the start of your thighs.

Next we will draw the thighs. Start at the circle, and then have your line come in a little bit towards the bottom. Where your line stops, draw a circle. These circles are your knees.

Now to your calfs. These are just two lines from your knee. If you want to you can make them have muscle tone but I'll do that later. For your ankles, just draw two circles.

For your feet, I don't really know how to explain the shape. You want to draw something like a circle, but you want to show your toes too so, in the front of your circle draw a little bit of a diagonal line.

Okay, the shape of the legs are done, so let's go back to the arms. Draw a circle at the bottom of your upper arm. This circle is your elbow.

From the circles draw your forearm. Your forearm should be about as long as your upper arm and should get smaller towards the bottom. The forearm should reach about half way down from the lower torso. 

At the end of your forearm, draw a circle on both sides. This is your wrist.

Now for the hands. We are not going into full detail today, so just draw them as an oval cut in half. I'm going to have my female hold something and the male is going to have his thumb in his pocket. You don't have to do this I just want it to look more interesting. 

This is the shape of the hand (the one in the center) that you draw.
The two hands on the outside are what your hands might look
like later. Sorry, these hands are really bad, I did them late last night.

As our last step, connect all of the shapes and erase the lines inside. Leave the line on the head because we will use that later for the eyes.

Erasing

Well, there you have it! How to draw a person part l. Next time we will continue with the face, then hair, and clothes. Luckily for you guys you do not have to wait a whole two weeks to see my next post! From now on, it's only going to be a week of waiting!!! Also, if you would like to see another blog with some great tips for art, look at my friend Martina's blog. She has some tutorials too!

See ya soon!

All photos were taken by me

Also, please comment below if you thought this was helpful!

Marching the Music

As a percussionist (I think that link is a very good explanation of what a Percussionist is.)I get to participate in Marching and Pep band! For those of you who don't know, marching band is when a group of musicians march together in straight lines and play music at the same time while trying to keep the correct tempo. (So anyone who is in a Marching Band is truly a master at multitasking.) Pep band is a time when the band gets to play a bunch of songs all through out school games! We pretty much play at Football games and we sometimes will do a few other performances at other games. (Tonight I got to play at a basketball game at half time) 

Both of these are super fun but the one that takes the most work (but is still lot's of fun) is marching band. Marching season(or for me, drum line season) starts at the end of the school year an goes through the first part of the summer. So we get to get up early to go and practice inside a little and outside before it gets to hot, which is so nice because it would be way to hot to practice in the afternoon. We work on how to march in unison, how we stand, where we look, how many steps we need to be behind someone else, how to walk in a straight line, how to stand at attention, and a few other stuff. This all may seem like too much work but really, it is a great experience and you feel very accomplished after you preform!(Sure you feel tired too but after you preform you get to relax.) This year was the first year I got to march and I had a great time! It was really fun to work at memorizing music and listening how we all fit together. 

This is a picture of our marching band at the fourth of July parade! Photo Credit: My Mom

On top of all of the marching stuff, we get to wear sweet uniforms. Sure they are not the things that you want to wear in public but when you have a bunch of band students wearing them; they all look like  toy soldiers, they are all marching in step, and playing, it is pretty impressive! The hats I think were my favorite part because we got to wear plumes. (The feather on marching hats) I am an easily entertained person and plumes just make me smile! There is a down side to the uniforms. Because there are shoulder pads and girls have to put their hair up in their hats, the uniforms make every one look like guys. It's kinda weird...Oh well!

This is a picture of me playing cymbals.
My pants are too big but we noticed too late. Oh well! =)
Photo Credit: My Mom

Music is a great addition to anyones life. Wether you are playing the music, singing to your fish, playing the piano for a grandparent, or you are listening to a marching band as they march in a parade! Always listen to the good kind of music that uplifts you because your life will be MUCH better! I would like to share two quotes that I found from Quote Garden that I really like about music:

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~ Confucius

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music. ~Ronald Reagan

See ya!