Photo: Matheus Macedo
The ability to draw a convincingly real portrait may seem difficult to achieve, but the reality is that all it takes is an understanding of different techniques and a lot of practice. If you are willing to learn a few tricks, you can start your journey toward achieving realism in your drawings. Luckily, My Modern Met has a lot of resources to help you along the way.
To start off, we have a number of written drawing tutorials to help you grasp the basics of drawing people. This includes step-by-step instructions for drawing eyes, lips, noses, and hair, as well as faces and hands.
If you are just getting your feet wet with drawing portraits and want to get more comfortable with the basics before diving into realism, we can help with that, too. Our e-learning platform, My Modern Met Academy, has several drawing classes that revolve around portraiture and one is specifically geared toward beginners. Taught by artist Melissa de Nobrega, Portrait Drawing for Beginners: Learn How to Draw Anyone You’d Like, the online art class is the perfect way to get comfortable drawing people.
Over the course of several lessons, de Nobrega breaks down the anatomy of the face and provides insights on how to find facial landmarks. She also guides you on how to ensure that you get the proper proportions every time you start drawing a face. You can then follow along as she works on a digital tablet to create a stunning portrait. Whether you end up working digitally or on paper, the fundamentals that she teaches will set you up for success.
Once you feel comfortable with those skills, it’s time to take the leap toward realism with our newest drawing course, Realistic Portrait Drawing Made Easy. Taught by Matheus Macedo, who specializes in creating hyperrealistic portraits, the class is a masterclass in realism. Macedo makes things easy by breaking down the face into its individual components, allowing you to work beside him every step of the way. He’ll also show a few easy tricks on how to transfer your inspiration image onto paper in order to set yourself up for success.
So, as you can see, there are a lot of ways you can learn to draw realistic portraits; just be careful. Once you get started, it will be hard to stop!
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While creating a realistic portrait may seem intimidating, there are a lot of ways to learn.
Photo: Matheus Macedo
Start by using these simple drawing tutorials to get you comfortable with sketching different people of the human body.
How to Draw Eyes
Photo and Art: Sara Barnes / My Modern Met
How to Draw Lips
Photo and Art: Sara Barnes / My Modern Met
How to Draw a Nose
Photo and Art: Sara Barnes / My Modern Met
How to Draw Hair
Photo and Art: Margherita Cole / My Modern Met
How to Draw a Face
Photo and Art: Sara Barnes / My Modern Met
How to Draw Hands
Photo and Art: Sara Barnes / My Modern Met
Then, if you are a beginner, discover the basics of portraiture with our online drawing class, Portrait Drawing for Beginners.
Once you feel confident, enroll in Realistic Portrait Drawing Made Easy to learn all the tips and tricks on how to create realistic portraits.
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