How to Draw a Self Portrait in 8 Steps

Self portraits can seem difficult, especially for beginning artists, but they are a wonderful way to practice sketching the human form. Grab your sketchbook and pencils and read below the jump for instructions on drawing a self portrait.

Steps

1 Take a picture of yourself, against a plain wall that makes your features stand out, or get a drop cloth, you are going to want someone to take several pictures for you in several different facial expressions to get a nice picture of yourself.

2 Get a good large enough piece of paper and a drawing tool of your choice, like pencil, charcoal, or ink.

3 Draw outlines, lightly, of your major features, like face shape, shape of the hair, and eyes/nose. Your eyes should be 1/2way down your face.

4 Add shadows and using your fingers or a smearing tool to smear and the eraser to remove some, when used correctly will start to look realistic.

5 For the hair, you will just have to draw each ‘thick line’ and adding shadows, highlights, etc.

6 Keep adding and removing the shadows/lines, until you are finished.

7 Find a frame that fits it nicely, and erase the pencil smudges around your portrait to look professional and put it in a frame.

8 Hang if desired.

NOTE: If you want to learn to creat realistic portraits follow this link.