drawanyway.com

Early this morning I got a head start (heh) on my Draw Anyway post when I snaffled a seat near the back of the bus and started drawing people’s hair. Sitting behind your subject is ideal for this task, for a few reasons:

> They don’t know what you’re doing.

> You can get an unimpeded view of the hair, without having to concern yourself with drawing more difficult things like faces, etc.

> You end up with a page full of the back of people’s heads, which you’re unlikely to want to ever display - thus the exercise is nothing but an exercise. There’s no pressure to produce beautiful pictures; you are just practising.

I love drawing hair. I think, no matter what medium you are using, it’s the easiest part of a person to draw. There are just a few things to keep in mind.

> Hair is basically a succession of lines, be they curly or straight. While you are not going to draw every single hair obsessively, drawing a few representative lines, following the direction of each ‘chunk’ of hair, really works.

> Drawing close-cropped hair from behind is a great education. You can see the crown, where growth emanates from, and see the swirl pattern of the hair all laid out before you.

> With longer hair, a good approach is to look for the light and shaded sectors of the head. Partings are often darker than the rest, as are the portions of hair below a curl, and the hair at the side of the head. Look carefully at the light and you’ll often see a kind of halo effect. Stopping your shading just short of the outer line of the head will replicate this.

> Start by getting down the basic outline of the hair. Big hair is easiest, because it disguises the shape of the skull beneath. Because it’s amorphous, the viewer won’t be able to say whether it’s right or wrong. But as you get more confidence, try shorter hair, and representing the head shape beneath, too.

There’s such a variety of hair types and hair styles: quiffs, sideburns, perms, mohicans, buzz cuts… for me, this is a subject that never gets old.