child faces first sketches.

These two are the ones that I started with for practicing drawing a younger face. The first one of the young girl I don`t really like as much, especially the hair and the forehead should have been a bit longer. Also, the eyes look a little too old to be a child. It could be more of a little bit older kid.

The next one of the little boy was just a quick sketch just to get more of an idea of the basic face structure. I like this one because of the simplicity, and I wanted to do one with closed eyes.

I learned that when drawing a young face, it`s important not to make too many shading lines and such, because kids have much ``softer`` skin, and less wrinkles or lines. If you shade too much, it ends up adding a few more years. Odd, but true! Also, when making the eyes, it`s important not to outline them too much...which i had trouble with in picture one.

faces a different ages.

The composition of a child's face is much different than that of an adults... and the key to an accurate children's portrait us understanding that...and {the much harder thing, applying it on paper.}
One of the major differences is that the face pretty much begins halfway through. The forehead makes up half, or sometimes over half of the face's composition. Also, the head is a lot rounder. The eyes look a lot larger compared to the rest of a face. Another thing to note is the lack of a defined jawline and pointed chin, and not really prominent cheekbones. The nose, jaw, and eyebrow ridge are upturned a bit more as well. This picture shows how a child's face changes throughout the years. It's not that detailed, but it gives a rough idea...








This picture {despite how weird it looks} is pretty accurately showing the difference from the side view...













Finally, This link was very helpful just to see some examples :)
http://www.pxleyes.com/blog/2010/04/50-ultra-realistic-children-portrait-drawings/

With all of this information, plus a bit of tips from my art books {listed on the resource page}, i'm going to try to get some practice and hopefully post a few of my attempts sometime this week or next.

update.

So, the last time I posted I was beginning to be not-too thrilled with this project. However, I've put a bit more time and effort in {probably something I should've done in the first place,} and it's been pretty enjoyable. And, I've surprised myself with some of the way my first sketches are turning out. Here are my two favorites so far.

The first one turned out alright, I was working with lighting from the top right. I don't quite love how the left side of the face turned out, but it's alright. I tried to do some cross-hatched shading for the shadows. The angle of the face is also about a three-quarter view, so getting the left side to look realistic was a bit challenging. The one thing that was fairly difficult about that was not making the jawline or cheekbone too sharp. Also, it's pretty hard for me to get the left eye {the one to the left on the paper!} to resemble the right one {because I usually draw the right eye first.} This time, I drew the eye on the left first and it worked a bit better!

The second one was just a quick sketch for practice. Not quite as much detailing and shadow work :) The main goal was just to get it to look like an actual human face.

Any comments or suggestions?
Let me know!

adjustments.

I've realized that when it comes to drawing realistic looking faces, my main holdup is that they take a lot of time. The portraits can potentially take days, and in all my practicing just the basic features, I've taken hours.... which does not work well for me. I'm the type of person who prefers to start something, and then be able to have a finished product by the time I'm done. However, with drawing portraits, this is not the case. I'll have to go back to my work and continue where I left off.

I've also had difficulty making enough time for it. We're halfway through the semester, but I just can't seem to set apart enough time to sit down and work on specific things. Which is sort of frustrating, because despite that I want to do this, I keep making excuses.

So, because of lack of other ideas, I'm making a more rigid schedule for myself. {I guess I just need that discipline.} Although I've been keeping up with my goals, I do the minimum amount, but it's just not satisfactory. So, all that being said, you should expect to see much more progress in the future due to the fact that every Tuesday, I will force myself to sit down and work... and I know that even though I am 'forcing' myself to work on a passion project, I will enjoy it once i stop putting it off :)

My lack of progress will {hopefully} also stop frustrating me with this new 'system' {for lack of a better word.}

pictures...

as promised, some of my first attempts in photos :)
any suggestions? i'd love to hear them.

eyelashes...many futile attempts. 

 rough sketch of eye.

 making a grid helps, actually ;) but again, first attempt!

 textures and shading exercises, kind of fun :)

i obviously haven't done this in a while!

So today I happened to have some extra time, and decided I'd better put some more time into my passion project. I opened the art book and decided to make myself an artist because i felt "in the mood to learn."
Ha.
Was I wrong...
Have you ever realized that it sometimes doesn't matter how much you feel like doing something? Sometimes, you're just not that great at it. But...greatness requires practice. So I hope to put in some more practice to produce something better than the way things are turning out now.
However, my time was not all wasted {thank goodness.} I now can say that I have a whole lot of experience with pencil shading {and all the different sharpness-es/hardness-es of the drawing pencils} as well as some practice with basic facial features.
My favorite one to do is the eye... mostly because it looks the best and I am sort of good at it :P The nose, not so much. There are so many different angles and sizes and shapes when it comes to noses that it's hard to get it just right. Especially if i'm trying to get it to look like an example for when i work on portraits later!
I like working with the softer pencils because they smudge a bit easier, and most lines on faces aren't really defined, other than the outline. Creases by the eyes or other lines aren't made by just using one line, it takes a bit of shading and a couple strokes {and erasing!} to perfect it.
My main challenge when drawing my practice eyes was the eyelashes. They ended up looking a bit more like checkmarks, rather than eyelashes. I have to work on getting the curve but also going from the thick to thin like an eyelash is.
i'll add a few pictures of my practice work soon :)