How to get a LIKENESS in a portrait

Learn more about our Portrait course which starts Thursday 12th Sept: https://www.lovelifedrawing.com/portr...

To join our upcoming Portrait course, and get all our figure drawing courses plus feedback and support as you learn, join our Study Group: https://www.lovelifedrawing.com/study...

Learn how to simplify the figure and draw it in just 10 days for free with our Fresh Eyes mini-course: https://www.lovelifedrawing.com/fresh...

A good source for references when practising portraits: https://www.earthsworld.com/

Is it more important that a portrait is accurate or interesting? It depends a lot on the situation. In an ideal world, we could do both and achieve a likeness while still prioritising expressive marks, shape design, edge design and other things that we love.
In this video, I go over an approach to drawing faces that allows you to be expressive and create an interesting design while still capturing the person. If you'd like to learn to draw portraits this way, check out our portrait course (link above).

0:00 The levels of likeness
2:36 What about illustration?
3:55 An east start to likeness
5:28 When you really need accuracy
7:20 Step by step process
17:08 If you're serious about portraits
18:10 What about tracing/grids?
20:47 The Portrait Dials