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nose or under the lower lid. You can slightly tone the shadow-shape with your pencil, using crosshatching, or, if you wish, rub the tone in with your finger to smooth it. Be sure that you place and tone the shadow-shapes exactly as you see them. They are the shapes they are because of the bone structure and the particular light that falls on the shape.

Fig. 10-34.

11. At this point, you are ready to decide whether you want to leave the drawing at this somewhat rough or “unfinished” stage, or whether you want to work the drawing up to a “high finish.” Throughout this book, you will find numerous examples of drawings at various degrees of “finish.”

This lesson leads to one of the two additional basic skills I mentioned in the Introduction: the “dialogue” that goes on in drawing from the imagination. This is drawing at a more advanced level. You check the information “out there” or in your imagination and just barely indicate placement of the first marks. This causes an imagined image in the mind of the artist, who then draws what he or she has already “seen.” Thus drawing becomes a kind of dialogue between the artist’s intent and what develops on the paper. The artist makes a mark. That mark generates a further image. The artist reinforces the imagined addition, which triggers more imaging, and so on.

Fig. 10-35. A diagram of the three-quarter self-portrait shown in Fig. 10-37.

Fig. 10-36. The full-face view diagram.

12. I will briefly list again some of the main proportions to watch for. Remember that your brain may not be helping you to see what is really “out there,” and these reminders may encourage you to take sights on everything!

• For a full-face self-portrait: Eye level to chin = eye level to the top of the skull.

• If the hair is thick, the upper part will be greater than half.

• The space between the eyes is approximately one eye-width.

• Determine the length of the nose by imaging an inverted triangle with the outside points at the outside corners of the eyes and the point at the bottom edge of the nose. This is a variable proportion. The inverted triangle is a particular shape for each particular model.

• The outside edges of the nostrils of the nose are usually directly under the inside corners of the eyes. This proportion also varies.

• The outside corners of the mouth fall under the pupils of the eyes. This proportion varies. Note with special care the position and shape of the outer corners of the mouth, where much of the subtle expression of a face is located.

• The tops of the ears fall approximately at or slightly above eye level line.

• The bottoms of the ears are approximately at (or slightly above or below) the upper lip. Note that if the head is tilted up or down, the location of the ears—as seen on the picture plane—relative to the eye level line will change.

• Observe the neck, collar, and shoulders relative to the head. Make sure that the neck is wide enough by checking the width in relation to the width of the face. Use negative space for the collar (draw the spaces under and around the collar). Notice how wide the shoulders are. A frequent student error is making the shoulders too narrow. Sight the width relative to your Basic Unit.

• In drawing the hair, look for the largest lights and shadows of the hair first and then work down to the finer details later. Note the major directions in which the hair grows and the places where it parts to shows a darker tone underneath. Note and draw details of how the hair grows and what its texture is close to the face. Give your viewer enough information about the hair to know what it is like.

The portrait drawings throughout this book will demonstrate various ways of drawing different types of hair. There is obviously no one way of drawing hair just as there is no one way to draw eyes, noses, or mouths. As always, the answer to any drawing problem is to draw what you see.

If you have decided on a three-quarter view, please review the proportions for that view that I provided