The arabesque of the hair is part of the overall construct. A correct construct is significant to the likeness of the hair. Many novice draftspersons begin with the face and grow outward from there. This is however a bad procedure and instills bad practices that will prove hard to overcome.



In fact, the arabesque is especially significant when sketch a coiffure. Attempting to sketch the hair working from the inside out, bit by bit, is a recipe for failure. The hair will result in being either too small for the skull or too large.

Drawing within the construct of the hair, first put in the primary darks. These darks are best seen by squinting down your eyes until a general pattern of light and dark is observed.

Next, you need to blend the graphite in a sculpturally fashion following the general gesture and motion of the hair. For this you can utilize your fingers, a tissue, or a paper stump. If you utilize a paper stump be careful not to deaden the look. If you utilize your fingers make sure they are dry and also wipe them constantly with a paper towel.

Then, utilize your kneaded eraser like a loaded paint brush to lift out the important lights. Do not be overly fussy here. A more virtuoso approach creates a sense of life and rhythm into the hair. If you make a mistake just blend the graphite again with your fingers or stump and do it again.

Sometimes when you block-in the hair other light parts of the skull pop out. This is one reason why drawing the skull as a whole is necessary.

French braiding is a stunning hair style, but extremely complex and hard to draw. The idea is to sketch these French braids fluidly and with motion. A balancing act is required here: the intricacy of the hair’s styling is best handled by first line-sketching the main locks and braids. As you lay out the braids make certain to plumb and carefully measure and place each important lock and braid.

When drawing from a photograph there is the temptation to duplicate it down to the smallest detail. You may or may not give in to this temptation but you should always make sure that the hair maintains its liveliness. However, in most cases, you will not need to sketch every detail.

Further block-in the darks taking into account the bearing and gesture of the important locks of the hair. The most difficult thing is to refrain from plunging into an area of detail. Not to do this requires mental discipline. Best is to follow a layered procedure that progressively stacks the arrangement of the hair, lock by lock.

You also should soften the edges of the hair line so that it blends into the forehead and sides of the face. Hair does this naturally.

Be sure to used sharp pencils because dull pencils lead to dull, dead hairdos.

Having first mapped out and hatched-in the important locks of hair makes the sketching of the finer regions much easier, but is still labor intensive. You should be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on a hair.

Also, step back from the sketch to maintain an overview of the primary light/dark pattern because detailing can result in a flat chaos in which the values close in on each other.

Hold back from sketching bangs too soon in the process. This helps ensure that the hair and flesh can be unified into a unified sense of spirit.

Drawing hairdos so that it reads naturally and has a rhythmic gesture is difficult. Usually it takes as much time and effort to render the hair as it does the face and neck. You must spend as much care in preparing the hair as you would for the rest of the portrait. If you draw from a model make sure you do the hair before your model takes a rest because the hair will very likely have changed when the break is over. The strategy, then, is to devote a whole 20 to 30 minutes of a pose segment to the hair.

With these tips you can be certain that in time your sketched hairdos will look real and lively. Do not forget that sketching hair takes time so that you do not get irritated.