How you handle the hair can make or break a portrait drawing. It deserves at least as much attention as the rest of your drawing, and sometimes requires more. Short hair is relatively straightforward to draw, with short, flicking pencil-strokes working against the direction of growth, using “negative space” drawing to reserve light hairs. If you look at Chapter there are several examples of fur drawn using this same technique.

Long Hair

The trick with drawing long hair is that rather than trying to draw every strand, you draw the hair in “ribbons.” Drawing the light and shadow that falls on these ribbons of hair, then separating out strands by drawing the shadows between them, results in natural-looking, three-dimensional hair. Ideally, the model should have well-conditioned, styled hair that falls naturally into curls or wedges. Good lighting, as always, can help to make the artist's job easier, creating highlights and shadows.

1 Look at the hair and identify the main shapes, sketching the separate sheets or ribbons of hair that you can identify. When starting, ignore stray strands.

2 Look for the darkest areas and shade those in, feathering off toward lighter areas and being careful to reserve highlights.

3 Shade the main values of the hair, reserving highlights and working along the direction of hair growth. You can blend these with a stump for a smooth sheen. Lift off lighter areas with an eraser, smudging slightly toward the edges of highlights.

4 Work in any strands of dark along the hair, adding texture, carrying a few strokes through areas of highlight—but not too many, just enough to create texture. Use a harder pencil to graduate some areas of tone and to strengthen dark values. You can add a few stray hairs with pencil strokes and erased highlights to create a softer effect.