Drawing people is considered one of the most difficult in fine art. Therefore, beginning artists often prefer to use sketches or images for copying. But even in this case, you need to correctly depict a person's pose, understand the proportions, which means you need to have at least basic knowledge of anatomy and be able to correctly convey dynamic movements and emotions. In sketches, everything is much simpler, and if you know some subtleties, you will get very unusual and stylish drawings.
What is sketching
Sketching is a certain direction of fine art, which consists in drawing very quickly, without details. During the work, a sketch is created, that is, a draft of the future image, which at the same time makes it clear what exactly the artist wanted to demonstrate.
At the same time, a person needs minimal effort and time to create such pictures. We are talking about fairly simple drawings, which are just a few lines and simple geometric figures. A quick drawing can be supplemented with some text.
How to Draw People Sketches Correctly
To create a sketch, you need to follow a few simple rules.
Maintaining proportions
To quickly understand how exactly the proportions of the human body are formed, it is enough to line a sheet of paper into 8 equal parts. After that, you need to depict a person as shown in the picture below, so that each zone is in a certain square.
This type of ruling can be used when creating the sketch itself, after which the extra lines are simply deleted.
Features of the skeletal structure
Sketches of people for copying will be useful to understand how the image is constructed. But you also need to have an idea of the human skeleton. In this case, the drawing already discussed above will also help.
The 8th division should be occupied by the head, after which it is worth bringing out the chest, which accounts for two more such segments. The pelvis is located approximately at the level of the 4th division, and the knees are at the 3rd. The feet are at the very bottom.
These are approximate proportions of a standard human skeleton, which is quite enough to draw a sketch. If a beginner artist plans to create many such images, then he will not want to do the lining every time.
Then you can prepare it in a graphic editor and simply print it on a sheet. Such a template is enough to put under the sheet on which the new sketch will be created.
Body shape
Beginner artists often make the same mistake, that is, they immediately try to draw the shape of the body. But you should not create lines at the first stage. First, you need to sketch the proportions, distribute the main elements of the skeleton and only then begin to design the muscles in the form of ovals.
Only then will the image be more harmonious.
Detailing
Once all the main elements are created, you can start connecting them using smooth lines, removing the extra guidelines created in the first steps.
That is, at first you get a kind of little man, consisting only of lines and simple figures, and after literally a few seconds a full-fledged silhouette appears.
To make the drawings look more dynamic, it is recommended to experiment with different poses. The more complex they are, the more interesting the sketch will look.
What materials will be required?
Sketches can be created using a variety of tools. But there is a standard set for a beginner artist.
| Drawing tool | Peculiarities |
| Paper | It is best to use a small notebook, which is called a sketchbook. It is usually made of high-quality paper and has a fairly thick cover. Thanks to its small size, you can take this notebook with you. If an interesting idea appears, you can always create sketches. |
| Simple pencils | Preference should be given to a pencil with a soft lead marked 3B or 2B. You can also use colored pencils to make the sketch more vivid. But, as a rule, such images are done in black and white. |
| Black marker | You can use either a thick marker or a thinner marker (designed for writing text). Using the tool, you can add contours when the image is ready. This will allow you to highlight the main elements of the picture. |
| Watercolor paints | In sketching, they are used only partially, that is, the artist paints only some areas of the image to emphasize them. There are also full-color sketch paintings, but they do not look as impressive. |
| Eraser | During work, any artist has to remove unnecessary lines, so you can’t do without a good eraser.
However, you should not overdo it when working with the eraser, since the main principle of sketching is to create careless drawings that are done as quickly as possible. |
Classification of pencils by softness
There are several levels of pencil softness, as well as a universal system for naming hardness. The European scale is commonly used, where B means soft, H means hard, and HB means medium-soft.
You can also find pencils marked with the letter F. This is the average between H and B.
There are usually numbers before the letters. They indicate the degree to which the pencil is soft or, conversely, hard. If you take a tool marked 4B, this means that it will be 4 times softer than the pencil that is simply marked B. The same is true for other classifications.
Place for drawing
Sketches of people for copying will help beginning artists develop their own style. It is better to immediately create an optimal atmosphere for work. It will be much more convenient for a beginning artist to create their first sketches at home.
In addition, you can always ask a family member to act as a model. But even if your family is busy, you can always make a quick sketch by simply looking at what your family is doing.
Useful tips for sketching
There are several recommendations that will help you master this interesting area of fine art faster:
- Observation. You need to constantly develop it by watching how people stand, walk or perform other actions.
Naturalness is very important in sketching, so you need to learn how to convey the basic movement of a person using a minimum number of lines. It would be a good idea to watch lessons from popular artists to see how they make sketches.
- If you can't draw some detail, for example hands, which are one of the most complex elements of the body, then you can look at what techniques exist for drawing these parts.
You can also use photographs of hands as a sketch. If you need a certain position of the upper limb, but can’t find such an image on the Internet, you can always use a mobile phone and take a photo of your hand at the right angle.
- Drawings do not necessarily have to be photo-realistic. In this case, the whole point of sketching is lost.
- Experienced artists recommend devoting all your free time to practice. Even if a beginner artist can only produce dozens of ugly images, the sketches will become more and more successful if you practice persistently.
It is also recommended to use only one side of the paper. If it is thin enough, it will show through. Accordingly, already drawn lines on the other side of the sheet can confuse the artist and make his work of poor quality.
But even if the paper is of good quality and thick enough, when drawing on the other side, the previous drawing will be erased, as it will start to touch either other sheets of the notebook or the table. As a result, the lines blur and the image looks dirty.
Another reason is that if there is only one image on each sheet, then after finishing the sketchbook, you can sort out all the drawings and lay them out on the table or hang them on the wall.
It is also convenient when you need to compare the result. For example, when an artist has just started drawing and wants to understand how successful his progress is.
Another important thing that is present in absolutely any image is perspective. Sketching does not have to be photorealistic, you can even deviate from the rules of proportions and other nuances, but the perspective is always preserved.
This means that if one tree is closer in the picture and the other is further away, then the first one should be significantly larger in size. To create a background, and to create the feeling that it is really far away, then it can be drawn as if in fog.
Also, many artists know very well that when an object moves away, it begins to acquire a slightly bluish tint.
If you plan to color the image later, it would be a good idea to learn more about light and shade. When an artist begins to draw, the entire sheet of paper is already fully illuminated, which means he must correctly determine where exactly the shadows should be located.
This creates a spatial sense of the image and determines its shape.
To learn more about shadows, you can watch tutorials or take an object and place it at different angles from the light source. This will help you clearly determine where exactly the darker elements should be and where the lighter ones should be.
Instead of painting, many artists use the hatching method. This allows you to set a shadow and at the same time highlight some elements.
How to draw a simple sketch of a person
Sketches of people can be found in a search engine by the query "sketches of people for copying", but it will be useful to understand how they are created. This will allow you not only to copy images faster, but also to create them yourself.
It's worth starting with the simplest:
- First, draw a vertical line in the center of the sheet.
- Now, to make it easier to navigate the proportions, you can draw 8 short vertical lines at the same distance from each other.
- The next step is to start sketching the head, shoulders, and pelvic area. In this example, the person is simply standing in a relaxed position. This is the simplest option. But over time, you can start complicating the task and drawing other poses.
- Continuing to add guidelines, draw elbows, knees. At first, you can draw small circles (in places of large joints), and then connect them with lines.
- Then continue working with the sketch, giving it shape. If you draw the hands as if they were behind the person's back, you won't have to draw the palms and hands, which will make the task even easier.
- Now, starting from the central line, start drawing the clothes, hairline and other elements.
- Since this is a very simple sketch, there is no need to try to achieve realism. Let the drawing look childish at first. The necessary skills will gradually appear.
- At the next stage, add folds, a collar, draw a belt, boots and other elements to the clothes.
- It remains to add a few elements of the face.
All that remains is to remove the extra lines and the simplest sketch is ready.
Sketch of a boy in 5 minutes
Sketches of people for copying allow you to understand that it is much easier to draw children than adults.
For example, it is worth considering the option for beginners:
- This example is without guide lines, but if you use them, it will be much better and faster. First, draw an oval to indicate the head. Do not press hard on the pencil at this stage, as some of these lines will be deleted later.
- Now draw a rectangle that connects to the oval. This will be the neck. After that, draw another rectangle, only larger, to indicate the body.
- In the next step, draw another rectangle. These will be the pants. On the sides of the body, you need to draw 2 thin and long rectangles to indicate the boy's arms.
- Next, add detail to the image by adding a cutout on the sweater and folds on the jeans.
- All that remains is to add the face. As in the first example, you don't need to pay much attention to details. You only need to indicate that the character has a mouth, eyes, and a nose.
There are still some details left to add, hair. You can draw a balloon or other details.
Ready sketches of people
Sketches of people for copying differ from each other. Although this is a relatively simple direction of fine art, it can be very original, especially if you develop your own individual style.
It will be useful to consider a few interesting examples:
- Sitting girl. As you can see in the image below, the artist used only a few lines, but the image looks finished on one hand, and on the other, it is obvious that the drawing was created in just a few minutes.
Drawing a character from the back makes the task much easier. In the example below, the pose is well drawn, all the rules of anatomy and positioning are taken into account.
- Girl on a stool. In this example, the slightly casual pose is clearly visible, you can literally feel how the character is sitting. At the same time, the artist uses fairly simple lines and does not strive for detail and realism.
- Hugging couple. This example demonstrates that it is enough to draw only a sloppy silhouette to create a very beautiful sketch. It seems that the artist deliberately made the lines slightly crooked, as if his hand slipped. This is a striking example of sketching.
- People on the bus. If you take a sketchbook with you, you can catch good subjects for drawing. For example, it could be a guy and a girl listening to music on the way to school or college. The girl has some kind of package in her hands, maybe food.
But the drawing is also not detailed, which allows you to come up with a story yourself.
- Below is another sketching technique. In this case, only hatching is used. The artist did not remove the guide lines, so you can see the principle by which he made the markings.
If you look closely, the author has created literally a few shadows and has not even given the image an outline. But still, when looking at the image, it becomes clear that this is a sitting girl with her hands folded on her knees.
- Girl reading. The main advantage of sketching is that there is no need to draw the most complex parts of the body. In this example, the author did not even sketch the eyes and hands, but still perfectly conveyed the energy of the image.
A girl with long hair is reading a book or writing something in it. You can use a thin marker to draw it. Then the image looks as if it was made with a pen and ink.
- Face close-up. The image below also demonstrates the shading. It seems that the artist first drew the girl according to all the rules, detailed the eyes, worked on the lips, etc.
And then he just added some loose strokes and curves to try to give the image a new style. Although it actually turned out to be a mixed solution, it looks very interesting.
- A guy with a laptop. In this example, a rather complex pose is used and the legs and arms are detailed, the face is drawn a little more. Therefore, such an image should be classified as more complex. However, the artist adheres to the sketching style. He did not delete the guides.
- A seated man. Just a few curved lines and it immediately becomes clear that the picture shows a man who is testing the water with his feet. At the same time, minimal detailing is maintained, the lines are careless, some of the guidelines are not removed.
A great example of a sketch that captures the atmosphere well, but is still fairly simple from a fine arts perspective.
- Close-up of a man's face. This example uses lines to create a detailed face. The artist uses rough, angular lines and shading for the face itself. The hair is drawn more casually.
This image is a great example of what proportions a face should have. You can take this layout as a basis and use it in the future.
- If you use a very thick pencil or charcoal, you can smudge the shadows a little with your finger. This will also allow you to use a minimum of lines, but get very beautiful and smooth transitions. It is also worth remembering that shadows come in different intensities, which is very well shown in the picture below.
If you darken one part a little more, then the necessary outlines are immediately created. The heroine's eyes, nose and lips are also drawn as if very carelessly. Experienced artists really do create such drawings in a matter of minutes, but with just a few lines they can achieve a resemblance to a certain person.
Sketching is a very interesting direction. In order to master the technique, you first need to try to draw a more detailed sketch, and then try to repeat it, but this time very quickly.
It's okay if your hand slips and the lines turn out with curls and other defects. On the contrary, this adds piquancy to the images, making them unique. At the same time, each time drawing the same plot, you always manage to get a completely different result.
You can experiment with images. For example, add some colors. But you shouldn't paint over the entire drawing. As in the example above, you can paint over only certain parts, for example, near the shadows, to highlight certain elements of the image.
Gradually, you can start looking for more complex sketches of people. You can use them for copying or to get an idea for your own drawing. The main thing is to practice as often as possible.
Having learned the basics of drawing, poses, skeleton and perspective, you can safely start sketching. At first, it may look awkward, but even such drawings have their own charm.
Video about sketching
Sketches of people for copying: