Before Turning to the special problems involved in the painting of the man and child, as dealt with in the two step-by-step demonstrations which follow, we shall interject a few suggestions as further aids to the representation of all persons, regardless of age, sex or coloring.

First, there is the matter of representing the human features: notably the eye, ear, nose and mouth. Of these, the easiest to do are usually the ear and the nose. The ear is a complicated thing in appearance to be sure, but excepting for its size and general set and shape there is nothing very individual about it; normally we pay little attention to the ears of even our closest friends unless there is something radically distinctive about them. For that matter, the ear is often wholly or partially hidden by the hair, or viewed in shadow or in a greatly foreshortened position. So the usual rule is to suppress the ear's complexity of parts, merging them in the simplest possible indication so that the spectator's eye will scarcely be aware that the sitter even has an ear.

While the nose is a more distinctive and distinguishing feature, prominently located as it is at the front center of the face, it is relatively easy to do, for, though capable of some movement, it is quite immobile when compared with the ever-shifting eyes or the changeable and highly expressive mouth. An important point in doing the nose is to avoid the all-too-common effect (in work of the beginner) that it is plastered on to the face and has little relationship to it. Make it look like part of the head, for it is.

Eye And Nose

Study the accompanying text for this development of the eye and nose.

Ear And Mouth

Step-by-step development from broad mass to simplified detail.

This relating of the head to an egg is not meant to show how to paint a head but rather to give you a feeling of form and a better understanding of the light and shade on the head. Note the diminishing light from top to bottom and from front around to sides.

Artists differ in their feeling toward the eye. Many— perhaps a majority—speak of it as the most expressive of all the features. Some, however, point out that although the eyeball itself has a quality of mobility and animation which the painter should strive to catch, the individuality and expressiveness of the eye come less from the eyeball—for eyeballs look much alike—than from the flexible muscles of the forehead and eyebrows, the type and position of the lid, and the surrounding network of wrinkles, in particular those at the outer eye corner and across the bridge of the nose. But don't overdo these details—one can paint a perfect likeness with the eyes almost lost in the general tone of the eye socket.

It is the mouth which is the truly sensitive thing. It is seldom twice alike, for under normal conditions it records instantly every change of inward thought or feeling. There are times when the shifting of the lines of the mouth by scarcely more than a hairbreadth will alter one's entire appearance. Therefore, the painter must observe his sitter's mouth keenly, recording with fidelity what he thinks to be its most significant expression.

But it is pointless to write much of such features. The main thing is to paint them all with restraint, remembering that they are but parts of a whole. Yet they are not separate parts, each complete in itself, but they form, together with the cheeks, the chin—the whole head, in fact —a homogeneous mass which must be painted as a unit. Only in this way can all the features be of consistent shape, size, light and shade and coloring.

Our accompanying Plates 11 and 12 are well worth study, as is Plate 13, which demonstrates not how to paint the head, but the fact that the head can be thought of as a somewhat egg-shaped form with its features bisymmetrically disposed. Usually it is lighted somewhat from above, those areas turned to receive direct light appearing as high lights, and the other areas varying in light and shade according to how they are turned in relation to the light source.

While we are on this matter of the head, we might well give some thought to the neck and shoulders. Not that we have neglected them—our very first construction in Plate 1 (page 26) took into account that, just as the head must be treated as a unit, it is most important for the head, neck and shoulders to be similarly treated. For practically every time the head moves, the neck and shoulders also move, adjusting their shapes and positions to the new pose of the head. And the head is by no means the stiffly upright thing which unobserving beginners seem to think it is. Nor is the neck a vertical cylinder rising from horizontal shoulders. Far from it!

Our present purpose is less to instruct you in these things than to stimulate your observation. As you look at people all about you, ask yourself such questions as, "What of the carriage of this man's head?" or, "What is the curve of this girl's neck? How do her shoulders slope?"

For that matter, one shouldn't confine his observation wholly to the head and these adjoining or adjacent body areas. Sooner or later he will want to try portraits which will include the arm with its hand, the leg, the foot. It is not time for such things yet—in fact in this book we are scrupulously confining ourselves to more fundamental problems so far as beginning portraiture is concerned. But it's never too early to start looking and thinking. Before long you may even want to dig into some of the artistic anatomies or other books on head and figure construction. A few good ones, when the time comes, are: Anatomy & Construction of the Human Figure, by C. E. Bradbury (McGraw-Hill); The Complete Guide to Drawing from Life, by George B. Bridgman (Sterling); and Drawing People for Fun, by B. Vernam (Harper).

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