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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
This is a great exercise to improve your perspective skills, especially with organic forms like human heads. You're going to figure out the orientation of the head in space by considering a simple box, then using that box as a map for a portrait. Watch this video for tips on how to do this properly.
Practice this from the photos I've provided in the downloads tab and don't forget to submit your drawing to the community!
RELATED LINKS:
One-Point Perspective
Two-Point Perspective
How to Learn Perspective - Draftsmen S1E26
DOWNLOADS
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
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![@kotka]()
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![Petar Ristic]()
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![@araka]()
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![@robikobi]()
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![@etin]()
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![François Alligier]()
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![@underthecarpet]()
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![Alexandre Frazao]()
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![@eduardovera2025]()
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In this project we'll practice applying perspective to organic forms. Heads, while organic, adhere to the rules of perspective similar to boxy objects, so we'll start by constructing 3D heads. Look for clues of the angle of each axis such as angles from brow to ear, the vertical center line of the face, and the horizontal side to side angles of the features.
I've prepared a range of portrait photos for you to work with, that you could find in the downloads tab under the video. You'll notice each photo is numbered. Please label your drawings with the corresponding photo you're drawing to help me and the community give you a critique. Otherwise it would be very difficult to know which box matches each photo.
Level 1: Basic Box Construction
Draw a box representing a simplified version of each head.
- Try to match the orientation and dimensions of the head in the photo
- Rely on your intuition to imagine each head's rotation and dimensions
- Iterative process: Redo and refine as needed
Level 2: Head Construction
Start with a small box representation of the head, same as Level 1. Then add linear head construction with accurate perspective.
- Use primarily straight lines to draw, emphasizing plane changes
- Find angles in the organic shape that correlate with the simple box (ex: top and back of the head)
- Observe, analyze, then draw
- Avoid drawing tiny heads; aim for at least 4 inches in height
Deadline: Submit by 1/15/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!
Got a bit carried away. Faces are hard. I'm still struggling with identifying the faces of the face. I find the mouth especially hard. The perspective I also slightly off. Good exercise for me!
But I had fun with that one and tried to sketch with more confidence than I had.
This box is really helpful! Still trouble with proportion though. Find it hard to get the proportions with the box right. I tend to make the face too wide by trying to fill the width of the bounding box.
First two pages were before the demo and critique videos. I learned a lot, spotted some weaknesses in my own construction I didn't know before. The hardest faces are still the ones from below, I constantly overthink them and while drawing it feels so incredibly wrong and unnatural.
Proportions are off, but I enjoyed trying to find the planes of each side of the head
It was a really fun exercise. After finishing it, I watched the critique video and tried to correct the mistakes I’d made. I found it a bit tricky to figure out where the planes changed in some of the photos; in fact, as I corrected them, I started to understand a little better what to look for. Unfortunately, even though I practice every day, the lines still don’t turn out the way I’d like them to, but I hope that with time things will improve. I want to Thank you in advance for any feedback or advice :)
Here are my first rounds of the portrait exercise. I feel like I hit a point where I went unintentionally with the project, but I think it switched the gears in my head in a good way. I have a long way to go
Hello, it’s been a while.
Here are my head exercises, thanks for any potential feedback. Some faces were easier than others, but it was a lot of fun. Thanks!
Drew a bit and if was fun, then did some little figures from imagination because I am addicted to trying to find rhythm. Took a bit of warming up haha, especially with the first one.
I was initially nervous about trying this, but I actually ended up having a lot of fun!!
Critiques are welcome. Perhaps I should try to show more 3d structure next time?
My submissions - some just lvl 1, some just lvl 2, some both. Most of these were done before watching the demo and the critique, except for nr. 17. After watching the demo these are some of the notes I made:
- I probably added too much detail in some drawings, specially the later ones
- I struggled with planes of the face with some of these
- Lineweight could be more deliberate, specially with the first ones
- I find the front facing portraits (like nr. 12) much harder to do.
Nr. 17 I did more quickly than the others and was more strict with straight lines. The main thing that stands out to me is that the far eye is still far too low.
With nr. 6, I liked the shadows around the eyes so I did add some rendering just around the eyes.
Overall this was a fun project!
Hello! Here are some level 1 head box sketches. Struggling a bit with visualizing the box fitted to the head, I often have the impression of wobbliness around where exactly the planes and edges are. Maybe trying to draw them a few times on top of the picture would help anchor this, I'll try that, and doing some more boxes after looking at the demo :)
Still struggling to see the box around the head and get the proportions right, but identifying those main planes really help keeping the features angles consistent once you have them !
Both portraits are result of researches with box, small scale sketches then about 30min each :)
I like the second one, interesting expression! I would have wished you had indicated the box to see the process.
As far as drawing in perspective; I do believe I have the boxes a little better. But when it comes to drawing portraits, I do believe I still need a little work trying to break them down. So please feel free to criticize, but keep it positive. Thank you.
I did some screwing around, had a lot of fun with this method, if combined with the proportions classes it definitely improves a lot the portrait construction 😤
Not great but will be doing more. I really struggle drawing straight lines does anyone know any additional excersizes I can do to work on free handing my straight lines more accurately?
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2mo
These are really well done! You kept to straight lines, and found really great organic boxy shapes for the planes of the head and features. They all have a really solid 3D feel to them, and you captured a bit of likeness with each! In #8 be careful of your features falling out of perspective. The mouth and chin have some arbitrary convergence so it looks a little off towards the bottom of the face. A really helpful trick to catch this early on is to flip the photo horizontally to look at it in reverse, or hold your sketchbook up in a mirror so you can see the image flipped. It instantly will help you see where you're off. It's like a magic trick. Hope this helps, keep up the good work!
This time they turn up better than my first try. But for the portraits the proportions are still off and the perspective weaker than the lv 1. I think I didn't visualize the box as I should had with the level 2. Also I don't know why, I can't never do folds right like you see in the neck.
What can you see that id failing here?
