Art has always fascinated me. The exciting aspect about being an appreciator of art is that you aren’t limited to solely paintings, drawings, and sketches. Art can come in many forms and all kinds of shapes and sizes. But, one thing is true for me personally regardless of what type of art I am viewing: Great art is the kind of art that takes the viewer’s breath away. In that sense, every time I watch an amazing soccer goal or a mesmerizing game-winning basket by my favorite NBA players, I imagine it would be just as gratifying as observing the Mona Lisa in person at the Louvre in Paris (though I haven’t had the honor of doing so yet). Great art is found in writing a beautiful piece of computer code and having it perform to the standards you have set. Great art is discovered in picking up a book and getting lost in it and realizing, at the end, the amazing journey you just took. Great art is also, in my eyes, watching parents make the tough personal, financial, and selfless decisions necessary to provide a great and non-turbulent life for their children.

While my own artwork, in my eyes at least, does not approach what I’d label as “great,” — I still feel as if I have many things to improve on and attempt— I have heard from a few friends that they would like for me to teach them how to draw. In hopes of fulfilling that request, this post is my initial attempt to explain, in greater detail, the steps I carry out to transform a lifeless sheet of paper into a papyrus carrying an art piece.

The art piece I am going to draw throughout the course of this post is going to depict my interpretation of the following image of the soccer superstar David Beckham:

The very first thing I do once I have picked out the reference image (the real-life image I will refer to while I draw), is actually just survey the photograph. Basically, I take five minutes or so and really focus on the picture. This is also the stage where I make mental notes of the subtle nuances to be aware of while drawing the piece. For instance, after looking at the Beckham reference image, I noticed the following:

1. He has a few creases and folds on his face that will have to be very carefully drawn since, in his case, they actually compliment his facial features.
2. His suit has pinstripes that are barely visible.
3. His eyes, at least in this photo, are not the same shape.
4. His ears and nose are roughly the same length, so they should be proportional to one another.

By spending the time early on to survey and analyze these reminders and pitfalls, I prevent having to encounter them before it is far too late. When drawing, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. And, it’s always better to anticipate the difficulties in advance.

Next, I get out my “tools.” At this point in my art “career,” drawing has been an enjoyable hobby, but it is only a hobby, so while I could definitely splurge some money and buy the proper higher-grade materials, I find that a 64-pack of Crayola color pencils and a mechanical pencil are more than enough to get the job done. I believe it’s not the tools that really matter, it’s what one does with the tools one has that is far more important.

Now, it’s finally time to draw! Personally, I like to start off by pretending as if the photo is my paper and that my main responsibility is to transmit the image in the photo onto my paper. So everything is essentially scaled from the photo to match my drawing paper’s size (which happens to be the standard 8.5" x 11" in this case). I first begin to draw the outline of his suit and, thus, his shoulders. As a general rule, I prefer to start my pieces with the easy stuff (like drawing lines) rather than diving right into some of the more complicated aspects like the head shape, nose, et cetera.

For the most part, I stay away from drawing “helpful structures” when I draw. By “helpful structures” I am referring to when an artist would say draw a light 2 x 2 grid on their drawing paper and then do the same for the photo (given they have a physical copy at their disposal). Then, they simply divide the grid sections up in such a way that it is easier to draw the image. I like to call this the “divide-and-conquer” strategy and I’m sure it is useful, but I seldom use this method because I am able to just judge where everything should lie. So think of the “divide-and-conquer” strategy as the training wheels on a bike — you use them until you need them and then, once you have put in the requisite practice, you can fly solo.

Next, it is time to start drawing the outline of the head. You don’t want to press too hard on the pencil because you want to be able to erase any unwanted marks. David Beckham’s face shape is squarish in nature and so the outline I draw of his head shape mimics that reality. I start from the bottom of his jaw and stop as I reach the sideburns. At that point, my fourth observation (from earlier) comes into effect: I carefully draw both ears to ensure that they are roughly the length of the nose that will soon appear in the middle of the face.

Next, I draw a rough sketch of his hair. The details of the hair will come later, what is important at this stage is to capture the outline of his hair as closely as possible.

Once the hair sketching is complete, I move on to drawing the mouth and work my way up to his nose, eyes, and eyebrows. This is probably the part of the drawing that requires the most concentration and depth perception because it is easy to draw one of those body parts too obtusely or acutely, which can cause the rest of the facial features to appear disproportionate. There can be no “weakest links” when drawing the mouth, nose, eyes, and eyebrows. Each of them depend upon an accurate depiction of the other three.

Once all of the features of the face have been drawn out, I usually stop and compare the reference image with my drawing and make mental notes of all the details I need to consider now. At this point in the drawing, the hard part of actually drawing the image is out of the way, now it’s time to exercise the patience and persistence necessary to add in every last detail. In a sense, I’d say I am 50% done with the drawing. But, while this first 50% is pretty important, it is usually the details (the last 50%) that give “life” to a lifeless paper. Attention-to-detail is one of the strongest traits that you must exercise as you embark on the last half of the drawing. For the next stage, I usually start by filling in the eyes, creases and folds on his face, and the facial hair.

Time to turn that mustache into a fully grown beard…

With the facial hair pretty much completed, the image is finally starting to look like David Beckham, but I’m far from being done. Time to move on from facial hair to his head of hair. For the hair, I first start by filling in the “main shapes” (see image below):

Then, it’s just a matter of staying true to the these “main shapes” of his hair and varying the shading as needed. This part of the drawing can get a bit boring since you have to use the pencil’s fine point to draw around a thousand or so “lines” of hair, but, if you persist, the end result is definitely worth the effort.

The face and all of its features are now complete (except for the eye color, which I’ll leave for last). Next, I add the pinstripes to the suit. I also depict any shadows and details to the neck area and his shirt. The tie finally begins to take shape.

Now, I color the tie in. I haven’t yet made use of the color pencils so far because this is going to be a black-and-white drawing, so the only time I will use color pencils are at the end when I shade in his olive-green eyes. So far, everything I have drawn is done by the mechanical pencil — the pencil is such an underrated medium.

There is not that much left to draw now. It’s just a matter of adding the gray color to his suit and coloring in the eyes. So we’re almost there!

Adding in the eye color and the last few finishing touches!

Complete! Took about approximately six hours to complete, but it was totally worth the time and effort. And, I learned a lot, which is always the main goal. Feel free to try it out on your own and see how you do! Good luck!

I have been blessed to have a decent ability to draw, so while I have an easier time with drawing than the average person, it is still difficult and challenging. Sometimes my art pieces look as beautiful as an iPhone, but, most times, they are categorical failures just like the Windows Zune (sorry, can’t help myself — the Zune was simply terrible). While I am always striving to get to a level with my art that hopefully takes people’s breath away, only a select few of my pieces have ever approached that distinction. Most of the pieces fall way short of that lofty goal. But, that’s just fine with me because if you try something, then, by definition, you open yourself up to the possibility of failure. And, I’ve learned you can’t be afraid of failing if you are putting in the work. Moreover, I find that I learn more from the pieces that don’t work out just right than the ones that do. Usually, the pieces that I’ve been the most proud of are actually the ones that had the most failures early on. Then, they were just tweaked and tweaked until I was satisfied. So, art and drawing allow me to fail on a consistent basis and I’ve been grateful for it because it’s allowed me to be humbled and have a deeper perspective on life and reality. It’s taught me more about self-belief, work ethic, failure, patience, persistence, attention-to-detail, and happiness than I could have ever imagined. It has been a real joy in my life to see the world through the lens of my artwork. My one and only hope is that it continues provide this service perpetually.