The rendering of kids demands freshness and directness of purpose. Regrettably, there are not too many quick and ready rules. Let us just say that children’s portraits demand a keen and patient eye.

For those who intend to do professional portraiture the good news is that children’s portraits can be lucrative. There are very few artists who can competently sketch kids.

Soft lighting works best for portraits of kids. The child could be looking towards a intense light source. This sort of light source will light up the child’s face and create an introspective facial expression. The value stretch goes from light to medium with the eyes very dark.

Addressing the facial proportions of kids in a general sense is somewhat of a waste of time. Their facial proportions change dramatically within a time span of six month.

Suffice it to say that the younger the child is the smaller the face in relation to the head. The eyes also appear larger although this can be misleading. A child’s nose can be a nightmare to sketch – there is nothing really to latch onto. And the mouth is very fine and sensitive not to mention its constant motion if you sketch from a model.

If you do want to enumerate some general proportions you can say that whereas an adult face is about half the size of the frontal head side, a child’s face is about one-third of that size. Also, note how little an infant’s neck is compared to the size of the skull.

At its widest segment, a baby’s face is about five eye widths wide. The width between the eyes is a tiny bit more than the width of an eye. Both the mouth and the nose are about the same width of an eye. Again, we must stress that these proportions are only a general rule and individual face proportions can be different. The above general rules can be made use of for comparison purposes when you do your own careful observations of a particular face.

As always, start your rendering by striking the arabesque and then correcting the height/width proportions as necessary.

After establishing the primary facial proportions (i.e., the brow, nose, mouth, etc.) block-in the major light/dark patterns. Then, stump down the graphite using your fingers or a stump. To render and re-shape the lights use a clean kneaded eraser.

Now the features are carefully placed, sized and partially sketched. There are two points to take into account here:

1. Your pencils must be very sharp, and

2. At this point, you should never fully complete a feature. Draw each feature no more than 50%.

As soon as the features are sized and situated as best you can, you can now further develop them. Do not neglect the hair and sides of the face. Everything should be advanced together. As you continue to sketch you should always be on the lookout for mistakes in proportions and value.

In closing, the basic methods made use of to sketch a child’s portrait are of course always the same. Above, we listed most of the differences in proportion and form between an adult skull and that of a child. Your frame of mind when rendering a child should be one that reflects the innocence and the softness of a child.

Do you want to learn the secrets of pencil portrait sketching? Download my brand new free pencil portrait drawing tutorial here: portrait drawing tutorial.

Remi Engels is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter and expert sketching teacher. See his work at graphite pencil portraits by Remi.

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Posted in: Drawing Tips | | January 2009