Head and portrait
The construction of the skull, how the head sits, the features of the face and a long portrait. From the first proportions to a head that stands in space and looks like a particular person.
Lessons in this category come with the Basic plan — $12 a month. Choose a plan
Lessons in “Head and portrait”
subscribers only1:40:08Female portrait, front view, for beginners
Right at the start of the journey it’s fairly hard to draw a portrait without sliding into mindless copying. For the work to be more conscious, you need to understand the form and the construction of the head. In this video lesson we break down drawing a female portrait from the front, the anatomy, the graphic approach and the composition. Have a productive watch!
subscribers only2:16:14Portrait. Marathon “The Human Form”, week 3
Week three and a full female portrait. We talk about the psychology of creative work, graphic devices, accents and exercises for fast growth.
subscribers only1:29:16Eyes, lips, nose, ear. Marathon “The Human Form”, week 2
Week two of the marathon! A stream on the anatomy of the parts of the face, graphic devices and ways of stylizing the form.
subscribers only1:31:30Drawing the head of Gattamelata in profile
We keep improving our head drawing, and this time we’re drawing the plaster head of Gattamelata in profile, lit from the front of the face. We’ll talk about volume, form, details, and the unity of the drawing. The lesson runs an hour and a half, so plan for roughly that much time or a bit more. Good luck, everyone! References attached :)
subscribers only2:10:54Drawing the head of Gattamelata in 3/4
Drawing the head means handling several jobs at once: you have to keep track of the graphic approach, the proportions, the form, the composition, the space and the contrasts. How to juggle all of that and still get a good result at the end is what I talk about in this video.
subscribers only2:32:29How to draw a constructive head
In this video lesson I show how to draw the head of Gattamelata from the front, from the first marks to the final strokes. Reference and Procreate brush attached.
subscribers only58:12Lecture on the types and styles of academic drawing
When I was just starting out, I had no idea what styles of drawing existed, what each kind of drawing is for, or how artists arrive at such stunning work in the first place. In this lecture we’ll talk about drawing, using works from the teaching collection of the Surikov Institute as our examples. Worth watching for anyone who would like to understand fine art in general, and drawing in particular, a little better.
subscribers only8:13Timelapse: female portrait with hands in a cool palette
Here I show the process of working on a female portrait with hands, which I did together with the students of the online course and the students at the St. Petersburg studio. The piece took about 20 hours; session after session the portrait was refined and worked up. First I chose a noir-ish cool palette of violet and pinkish large masses, which were gradually refined and filled with volume. In painting from life there’s a notion of "choosing the gaze." That’s when the model slightly changes their expression and the direction of their look while posing, and the artist has to notice it, choose the right one and catch it. In this piece I repainted the eyes about five times before I found the note I wanted. In the end it turned into an interesting, fairly worked-up noir portrait. I worked with two brushes: a textured one and Nikko Rull (both attached)
subscribers only2:10:35A painterly head of Venus
For anyone who wants to get color under control, painting antique heads is something of a challenge. Marble has none of the pinkness of cheeks and soft tissue, but it has interesting shades of its own, cold and warm at the same time, orange streaks running down it. In this video lesson I’ll show one of the painterly techniques you can use to render the head of an antique sculpture, with an underpainting and optical mixing of pure colors.
subscribers only2:23:48Portrait of a girl in a hat. Painting
In this lesson we’ll learn how to work step by step on a painted portrait and how to build a sharp composition and interesting textures in an illustration. Reference and brushes included. Enjoy! :)
subscribers only2:18:02Drawing a plaster cast head
Drawing the sculpted head holds an important place in learning to draw. There’s no extra local value here the way there is on skin, because plaster is white; the hair has already been resolved artistically, the emotion is already there, and all that’s left is to get the proportions, the anatomy and the value right. On top of that, good casts are a convenient way to learn the canonical, beautiful proportions. Enjoy the lesson!
subscribers only2:20:47Digital painting of a sculpted head
Portraits come in all kinds. And one of the simplest ways to practice the skill of portrait drawing is to work from a sculpture that doesn’t move. The simplest way to show volume is to show a convincing core shadow. It’s also important that the shadow isn’t too dark, or the form will fall apart. But not too light either, or there’ll be no contrast. In any case, the main thing you have to keep doing is working on new pieces and watching the nuances. Then, after a certain number of pieces, your skills will go up several times over. In this video lesson I show my approach to making a painted portrait from a sculpture.
subscribers only2:01:43Fallout concept art. The head of a super mutant
Let’s draw together! This time we’re drawing the head of a super mutant from my favorite universe, Fallout. References and brushes attached
subscribers only1:41:04Emotion in portrait drawing
There are the emotions of the face we’re drawing, and then there are the emotions of the drawing itself. Those are the lines, the textures, the directions, and the composition of the shapes. That’s what we’ll talk about in this video lesson. Arm yourselves with textured brushes and get ready to draw expressively! The Procreate brushes I worked with are attached below.
subscribers only2:30:20Drawing eyes
Everything you need to know about drawing the eye in one video. Form, accents, value, construction. Enjoy the drawing! Timelapse and photo reference attached
subscribers only1:33:48Video lesson on drawing the nose
Everything you need to know about the anatomy, form and drawing of the nose in one video. I’ve also attached a reference and a sped-up timelapse of the process for convenience. Happy drawing!
subscribers only2:46:10Digital painting. Female portrait
I got a lot of feedback that after this stream artists started understanding color better. Glad it’s useful to you, and it’s a pleasure for me! :) By popular request, here’s the recording of the stream on the painterly female portrait. I’m also posting the timelapse of the process, which includes the finishing pass that didn’t make it into the stream. The brushes I worked with are attached too. By the way, this post can be bought separately with unlimited access :)
subscribers only2:00:47Lesson on drawing a child’s portrait
One of the great subjects to draw is children’s faces. Hard, but interesting. Once you understand the forms, the specifics of the anatomy and remember the main proportions, children start coming out fairly easily. And if you ever need to make even an adult portrait look more childlike, you’ll understand the logic of the simplest way to do it. In this two-hour lesson we’ll study the proportions and the child’s skull, and draw children’s heads from three angles. Enjoy the drawing! :)
subscribers only4:57Timelapse. Portrait of an Eastern lady
Hi! So, everyone rested and ready to draw with fresh energy? 🙂 By popular request, here’s a timelapse of working on a painted portrait of an Eastern lady ✨ First we lay out the general zones: the forehead in a more ocher color, the cheeks pinkish, the chin a bit cooler. Then we work up the details — eyes, nose, lips — and after that go back to generalizing again. Attaching the photo reference and the brushes I made this portrait with. Time to complete — 5–7 hours.
subscribers only1:10:53Masterclass recording. Drawing lips!
Hi! The recording of the masterclass on drawing lips — part of the series on the parts of the face. We look at form, volume and character.
subscribers only1:37:37Stream recording. Drawing a simplified portrait
Hi! And I’d be glad if you wrote in about the difficulties you run into when drawing the portrait or the figure — which topic should I cover next? ✨
subscribers only13:18Drawing the male neck
Hi, friends! I’m carrying on with videos from the archive. In this lesson I talk about how to draw the human neck, about the neck muscles and where they attach, and about how to bring out the form properly with hatching. The neck is a very important part of the body (though of course they all are), and you’ve probably noticed how much the neck can change a person’s look and character: a ballerina’s swan neck is definitely not the same as a bodybuilder’s. ✨
subscribers only0:18Timelapse. Portrait on a dark background
Hi, friends! What are your plans for the long weekend? Going somewhere, resting or working, planning to draw? If you are, I’ve recorded a timelapse with an unusual way of drawing — try this process on the reference provided, or take one of your own. This timelapse shows the process of drawing with light on a dark background. We pick out the lit shapes, so to speak, and compose them against each other. The dark parts can simply stay dark, left unpainted. The old masters used this approach when drawing under contrasty light in a dim room. The exercise is great training for working with masses, for proportions and for an artist’s sense of value.
subscribers only39:20the lady drawing marathon. Results and winners!
Hi, friends! I wrapped up the marathon today on a live stream — here’s the recording, to watch and rewatch: These six weeks flew by at the speed of a wild boar tearing across a green field! We started drawing back in winter, with snow everywhere, and we’re finishing in the warmth of spring! What I want to say about the marathon itself: it was so cozy, and it was wonderful to watch your work, your creative flights, and your growth. Every single one of you did great, no exceptions! And the winners are: First place — Irina Dolganova. Second place — Spoonchik. I couldn’t decide on third place, so three participants share it: Ksenia (darkartboutique), Alena Lyubanevich, Daria Efremova. Winners in the "Graphics" category — Anastasia ZhdaNN and Ri Avale. In "Figure rendering" — Anna Polovinkina. In "Stylish portrait" — rxttn. and sign up! Thank you to everyone who created the atmosphere of this marathon — those who made it to the end, those who didn’t, those who work through the assignments at their own pace — thank you! Congratulations on finishing the marathon! Hooray! ✨🙂
About “Head and portrait”
The section is built around a single question: how to draw a face so that it belongs to a head with volume and not to a flat sheet of paper. There are 52 classes here. Long lessons of an hour and a half to two hours, where the head is built from the skull and carried through to value; separate lessons on the features; short timelapses that show only the sequence of moves; recordings of the teaching streams from the marathon on drawing women. The subjects vary: a plaster Venus and the head of Gattamelata in profile and in three-quarter view, a woman’s portrait head-on, a child’s portrait, the face of an older person.
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After these classes a portrait no longer starts with an eye. First you lay in the cranium and the facial mass, set the axis of tilt and the turn, check where the back of the skull has gone, and only then look for where the eye sockets sit. Portrait drawing stops depending on whether the first contour happened to land well: when construction holds the proportions, you can redo any detail twenty times and the head will not drift.
It usually breaks in the same places. The skull gets drawn small: the facial mask takes up almost the whole oval, a strip is left for the cranium, and the head ends up looking like a mask on a stick. Then comes the eye, drawn as an almond-shaped sign instead of a ball that sits in the socket and is covered by a lid of noticeable thickness. In the lessons on drawing eyes this is worked out through the ball and the set of the lid; the nose is built through three planes and the base instead of tracing the wings of the nostrils; the ear is placed by level between the brow line and the base of the nose, at an angle that repeats the ramus of the jaw. In three-quarter view there is a separate check that the far half of the face has foreshortened rather than stayed a mirror copy of the near one.
If you have come here for the first time, the order goes like this. “How to draw the head in construction”, then “A woman’s portrait head-on for beginners”, then the separate lessons on the eyes and the nose. After that it is worth taking on a plaster head: it has no expression and no living skin, so every miss in the step-by-step construction of the head comes out into the open and you see it without being told. Watch the timelapses later, as a way of glimpsing somebody else’s order of work rather than as a lesson.
What is not here. There will be no schemes along the lines of “draw an oval and divide it into three parts”, and no anime stylization. Nobody promises you a likeness on the first attempt. Likeness appears when the proportions and the character of the form are right, and that takes months of regular work. Access to the lessons comes with a subscription, and references are attached so that you draw the same setup instead of hunting for a similar photo in a search engine.
FAQ
Where do I start if I have never drawn a portrait?
Take “How to draw the head in construction” and do not move on until you have drawn the construction at least ten times from different angles. Then “A woman’s portrait head-on for beginners”, filmed as exactly that, a first portrait. The features come third, separately from the head as a whole.
Do I need to know the anatomy of the skull to draw portraits?
You need the artistic part of it: where the skull comes up under the skin and sets the form. The zygomatic arches, the brow ridge, the angles of the lower jaw, the temporal hollows. The section has classes on the skull and on the muscles of the face. Nobody memorizes Latin there, you look at what is visible on a living head.
Can I work from a photograph rather than from life?
Yes, most of the lessons are done from a reference, and it is attached to the lesson. A photograph distorts perspective and eats the halftone, so the classes point out separately what you should not take from a reference. The plaster heads in this section are there precisely so that your eye does not get used to photographic form alone.
Do the lessons work for a graphics tablet?
Yes, construction and proportion do not depend on the material. Some classes are filmed digitally, some in pencil and soft media. There is also digital painting of the portrait separately, if that is the technique you are after.
How long is one class?
The long lessons run from 90 to 170 minutes, the short lessons on individual features from 12 to 40, and the timelapses from one to twelve minutes. The long ones assume that you are drawing along with the video, not watching it straight through.
Head and portrait — how Azat draws it
Works by Azat Nurgaleev on the subject of this category: not an illustration to a lesson, but what the lessons lead to.
Portrait on blue 
Gentleman in a bowler hat 
Young woman in white 
Young woman in a shawl 
Portrait on yellow 
Young woman in gray