Lesson Five: The Basics of Women

An average woman's head

A fairly average face. Click to enlarge

Draw this woman 20 times.

The proportions of a woman’s face and a man’s are almost exactly the same. The difference lies in how you render it.

The chin and jaw are usually a little bit smaller. The eyelashes are heavier. Curves are softer. Lips are fuller.

Notice I said “usually.” Women come in all varieties. If you draw for a living, you’ll find yourself sketching features you wouldn’t have believed before.

But here, at the beginner level, you need to learn how to draw a completely average woman’s face. Variety comes later. Practice until you can draw this face without thinking. It’ll make all other faces easier.

By the way: Don’t be discouraged.

I say “Draw this 20 times.” You’re not going to know how to do it after just 20 drawings. What you’ll be learning is control and accuracy.

When you have 20 drawings, stack them in a pile. Set the pile face down. Look at your sketches, one by one, through the back of the page. Hold them up to a light or a window.

Find the mistakes that you make consistently.

Draw 20 more times. Find mistakes. Rinse and repeat.

2 thoughts on “Lesson Five: The Basics of Women

  1. Terri says:

    Hello Cartoon Vegas,

    I’m checking out how cool your cartoon paintings are and how awesome your website is. Now I’m reading about your lessons. I wanted to ask a question about your website, I saw that below this page it says WordPress and wanted to know if you programmed your website using WordPress?
    Or Maybe someone else programmed it for you. Was it expensive? Would you mind sharing. Love the layout, very sweet. Wonderful work. I’ve been trying my hand at Caricature art but find it quite difficult to draw with felt pens. But I have a collections of Caricature books and am practicing with pencils. Thank you so much,

    Terri

    1. says:

      Thanks Terri,
      I built this website myself, using WordPress. It’s not too complicated. The only expense was buying the domain name and hosting. I like BlueHost, they’re pretty cheap and have a simple WordPress installer.
      Drawing caricatures with felt pens is pretty hard to learn. But it’s what we do, so it’s what I teach!

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