Drawing of a guy's face

[PeteJ]

I made this one following a tutorial in a site called portrait-artist.org.
Referencing from a photo of someone named Ralph Martin.

[Bengoshia]

You're symbolizing quite a bit, I think you should take more time drawing still life, long drawings of still life I might I add and maybe pick up some beginner fundamental art books. Also, don't work from photos, try to work from life as much as you can, as it will help you a lot more. And really, I'll emphasize it again, take more time on your work, the more time, the better.

[cienokahlo]

Hi PeteJ,

I'm new to drawing, but I'm also learning how to draw better portraits. Not sure if I'm the best person to give advice, but here's my shot at it as I'm following these.

(1) Make sure you construct the face properly before you do any shading. Andrew Loomis' "Drawing the Head and Hands" is a great book for this. Your drawing's face angle isn't quite right, in the photo Ralph is facing a bit off to the viewer's right whereas in your drawing he is facing straight ahead at the viewer. Your features are not in scale with the face, and you'll fix this problem when you measure out the construction (size of mouth relative to head, etc.)

(2) Practice drawing still lifes of simple objects like fruits, an egg, etc. where you can focus on capturing the right value. Right now, you are using value symbolically rather than using the right equivalent value in grey scale. I have this same exact problem which I am working at correcting.

Good luck!