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Drawing & Painting Life Portraits

Lesson #6

THE MOUTH

People who are not artists believe that the eyes are the hardest part of the head to draw, but in my opinion, the eyes are simple compared to the mouth. Each time a new thought passes through your sitter's mind his or her mood changes, and the expression around the mouth changes as well. Anger, boredom, fatigue, disdain, petulance - all these feelings and a million more show around the mouth. Let me just give a word of advise: When you're working on your portrait and you get to a stage where the mouth is just right, LEAVE IT ALONE! Don't go back to the mouth for any reason. You can lose the likeness in a split second by adding just that "one more touch" to the mouth.

The lip tissue is darker in value and warmer in color than the surrounding skin. When the mouth is open and the lips are parted, we see the teeth. Infants have very full, soft, rounded lips. In old age, the lips become thinner. The upper lip is often in shadow, as it is a receding plane. The lower lip catches the light, as it is a projecting plane. The mouth is the most challenging part of the portrait for the artist because it is constantly changing, but the changes are usually extremely subtle. As John Singer Sargent once said, "A portrait is a picture with something wrong with the mouth".

OBSERVING THE MOUTH

When drawing the mouth, remember that the upper lip is made up of three parts, the lower lip of two. (see drawing to the right) The line between the upper and lower lip should be broken, varied in weight and intensity, to avoid a strained expression. In every part of the portrait you want to give the illusion that the image MIGHT move. Nowhere is this more desirable than the mouth. We must be extremely careful not to draw firm dark lines AROUND and BETWEEN the lips. The edges must be drawn or painted softly, particularly on
women and children. Note the way the corners of the mouth tuck into the adjoining cheeks. Pay a great deal of attention
to these corners. Do they go up? Down? How dark are they? If you paint them TOO dark, the mouth will appear very tight. In a small child the upper lip is frequently much larger and more protruding than the very small lower lip, for the lower jaw is undeveloped.

Study your mouth in a hand mirror. See how soft the lip tissue appears. The center of the upper lip projects, and the corners really recede as they go back into the cheeks. Turn your head slowly to one side. As you approach a three-quarter view, the far corner of the mouth tucks in and disappears. Turn slowly to the other side; watch as the other corner disappears. Now raise your chin, putting your head back. See how the mouth curves around the teeth. The corners of your mouth point down in this perspective. Try smiling. What happens then? Put your chin down on your chest and notice how the mouth curves around the teeth. The corners go up now; they go up even more when you smile. Throw your head back and look up at your mouth. The lower lip appears thinner than the upper lip. Conversely, when your chin is down on your chest and you are looking down on your mouth, the upper lip appears thinner than the lower lip.

DRAWING THE MOUTH, FULL FACE AND IN PROFILE

• Studying your mouth in a mirror, indicate with a light line where you want the mouth to be on your paper. Look first for the corners of the mouth and place them.
• The line between the lips comes next. Try not to draw this as one continuous line, but break it somewhere. This little break softens the mouth and prevents a tense expression. The viewer will mentally complete the line for you.
• Now form the upper lip, developing it from the three oval parts. The light coming from the upper left or upper right throws the top lip into shadow. Add this tone.
• While you're working on the upper lip, note the vertical indentation from the nose down to the lip and the shadow on the plane slanting back toward the cheek. If you're a man, you'll have facial hair growing in this area, which will tend to darken this part of the face.
• Now look for and place the shadow under the lower lip as it travels down to the chin. Squint hard and study your mouth. Do you need to add tone to the lips? A woman wearing lipstick may need to add tone; a man might leave the lip as is.

IN PROFILE

• Now let's try drawing the mouth in profile. Holding a mirror at the side of your face and looking at the reflection of your mouth in a second mirror, block in the mouth by first indicating the angle of the line between the lips.
• Block in, in a straight line, the angle of projection of your lips. Is the upper lip protruding more - or the lower?
• Tuck in the corner of the mouth.
• Darken the upper lip if it appears to be in shadow.
• Add the shadow under the lower lip and at the corner of the mouth. Keep the edges soft where the shadow blends into the light. Is the lower lip darker than the skin surrounding it? Add this tone if you see it. Now, with your eraser, pick out the highlight where you see it. You'll find the mouth is there without lines circumscribing it.

DRAWING THE MOUTH, THREE QUARTER VIEW

• Study your mouth in the mirror. Keeping your lines soft, draw the line between the lips, and break it somewhere.
• Lightly block in the upper lip by drawing the three ovals. Squint hard. Where do you see shadow? In the vertical indentation between the nose and the upper lip? On the shadow side of the lips from the center to the far corner of the mouth?
• Tuck in the corners of the mouth. On the far side, the side turned away from you, the corner may not be visible at all. Don't put it in if you don't see it!
• Add the shadows under the lower lip. Is the upper lip in shadow? Should the corners of the mouth be accented with darks? If the lips are darker than the surrounding skin tone, darken them. Now lift out the highlights with your eraser.

EARS

Students think ears are more difficult to draw than they really are. Some dedicated observation will eliminate this fear. Whether ears are quite flat or protrude, it's convenient to think of them as flat oval disks set at the side of the head. The ear is made up of cartilage, not bone, and has virtually no movement, so it doesn't change as ones expression changes. On an adult, the ear extends in a vertical shape from the brow line to the base-of-the-nose line. In profile, the ear begins at the halfway mark between the front and the back of the head and extends toward the back. It also slants backward slightly, sometimes paralleling the line of the
nose. The inner line around the top of the ear seldom follows the outer shape exactly. Don't forget that both ears usually line up with each other and are seen in perspective when the head is tilted.

OBSERVING THE EARS

Oddly enough, although ears usually don't contribute very much to the likeness, when they're incorrectly placed they can cause you a great deal of trouble. And it's a very subtle kind of trouble, for no one is expecting ears to matter much. The face can be perfect, the ears beautifully drawn, but you'll sense there is something wrong. For students, the biggest problem seems to be aligning the ears with the eyebrow line and the base-of-the-nose line. Make sure you follow the curving eyebrow line when the head is tilted and hang the ears from that. Like the mouth, when the head is tilted back, the ears appear to be lower; head tilted forward, the ears appear higher.

Before you start to draw, sit up very straight, holding your head absolutely erect, and look in a mirror. Envision an imaginary line at the top of the ears and another at the bottom of the ears extending across the face. (see drawing above) As you learned from the lesson on the proportions of the head, we have a rule of thumb that tells us the top of the ear usually lines up with the eyebrow, and the bottom with the base of the nose. But YOUR ears may be positioned differently; look hard and decide.

You will need a pencil, drawing paper, kneaded eraser, and mirror for this exercise:

• Block in the full-face diagram of the head using a light line to position the ears, top and bottom, where you see them.
• Think of the ear as a flat oval disk and begin drawing your ears with that form on both sides of the head. Now refine the outer shape of the disks into the actual shape of your ear. (see drawing above)
• Add the inner line curving around the top to form the rim or fold, called the helix, as shown above. Now define the bowl-like indentation of the ear and the small flap at the lower area. Draw the small flap at the front of the ear opening. Follow this procedure for both ears, and be sure to do both ears at one sitting. Does your hair cover part of your ears?

DRAWING THE PROFILE EAR

• Draw a square profile diagram of the head and lightly position the ear as indicated in the drawing to the right.

• Draw light lines indicating the top, bottom, front, and back of the ear (see image to the right). Then begin with the oval disk, slanting the top slightly toward the back of the head. Now refine the outer shape of the ear, top to bottom, as shown in the top illustration.
• Add the inner line inside the top of the oval as shown above right. From the fold (the helix), and carry it down to the lobe.
• Draw in the circular line describing the deep bowl; follow it down to the two quite rigid flaps which protect the ear opening - one at the lower back, one at the front toward the face. Add shadows and highlights. Now turn your head and draw your other ear. It is a different experience, drawing an ear from the opposite direction.

There is the mouth and the ears. Next week we begin on drawing the body. See you then!