Sketching hair is dictated by several aspects: the type of hair, its tint, quality, quantity, the arrangement and styling of the hair, the individuality and disposition of the sitter or the photograph, and the light effect upon the hair.

The arabesque of the hair is part of the overall construct. A correct construct is critical to the likeness of the hair. Many beginning artists begin with the face and grow outwards from there. This is however a bad procedure and instills bad practices that will prove difficult to break.

In fact, the arabesque is especially critical when render a hairdo. Attempting to render the hair working from the inside out, piece by piece, is a recipe for disaster. The hair will end up in being either too small for the head or too large.

Working within the construct of the hairdo, first put in the main darks. These darks are best seen by squinting down your eyes until an overall pattern of light and dark is seen.

Next, you need to blend the graphite in a sculpturally fashion following the overall gesture and movement of the hairdo. For this you can make use of your fingers, a tissue, or a paper stump. If you make use of a paper stump be cautious not to deaden the look. If you make use of your fingers make sure they are dry and also wipe them constantly with a paper towel.

Then, make use of your kneaded eraser like a loaded paint brush to pick out the important lights. Do not be overly picky here. A more bravura approach effects a sense of life and rhythm into the hairdo. If you make a mistake just blend the graphite again with your fingers or stump and do it again.

Sometimes when you block-in the hairdo other light parts of the head pop out. This is one rationale why sketching the head as a whole is necessary.

French braiding is a gorgeous hairdo style, but extremely complex and hard to draw. The idea is to render these French braids fluidly and with movement. A balancing act is required here: the complexity of the hairdo’s styling is best handled by first line-rendering the main locks and braids. As you map out the braids be sure to plumb and carefully size and locate each important lock and braid.

When sketching from a photograph there is the pull to duplicate it down to the smallest detail. You may or may not give in to this pull but you should always make sure that the hairdo maintains its liveliness. However, in most cases, you will not need to map out every detail.

Further block-in the darks taking into account the bearing and gesture of the important locks of the hairdo. The most difficult thing is to avoid from plunging into an area of detail. Not to do this demands mental discipline. Best is to follow a layered procedure that progressively piles the arrangement of the hairdo, lock by lock.

You also should smooth the edges of the hairdo line so that it blends into the forehead and sides of the face. Hair does this naturally.

Make sure you used sharp pencils because dull pencils lead to dull, dead hair.

Having first mapped out and blocked-in the important locks of hair makes the rendering of the finer areas much easier, but is still labor intensive. You should be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on a hairdo.

Also, keep stepping back from the sketch to maintain an overview of the prime light/dark pattern because detailing can result in a flat chaos in which the values close in on each other.

Hold back from rendering bangs too soon in the process. This helps ensure that the hairdo and flesh can be unified into a coherent sense of spirit.

Sketching hair so that it reads naturally and has a rhythmic gesture is challenging. Ordinarily it takes as much time and effort to render the hairdo as it does the face and neck. You must spend as much care in prepping the hairdo as you would for the restof the portrait. If you draw from life be sure you do the hairdo before your model takes a break because the hairdo will very likely have changed when the break is over. The idea, then, is to devote a whole 20 to 30 minutes of a pose segment to the hairdo.

With these instructions you can be certain that in time your sketched hair will look real and energetic. Do not forget that rendering hairdo takes time so that you do not get impatient.

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

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

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