How to Draw People

Learning how to draw people is an artistic challenge. However, once you rise to the challenge, the personal rewards can be limitless. Most important is that your subject looks real and looks alive.

When drawing the body, you therefore have to capture the natural gesture of the figure. Otherwise your figures can look like stick men. (In contrast, here is some discussion on the nude figure.)

To draw people convincingly, also requires close observation of the figure's clothing. When drawn properly, the folds and the wrinkles will actually reveal the contours of the body underneath that clothing. This is a very powerful drawing technique.





The human face has a general set of proportions. Probably the most difficult aspect of drawing people is to capture the slight variations in that set of proportions, in order to capture each person’s individual likeness.

Click on the drawing of violin player, Joe Venuti, for commentary on a step-by-step drawing from life.

With practice you can learn to draw lifelike portraits in pencil.

You can also learn to do expressive charcoal drawn portraits.

If you don't have a model, a great practice is simply to look in the mirror.

You can learn to draw eyes , noses and mouths by doing self-portraits. The same applies to your hands and feet. Throughout history, artists have used this method.

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