Written Guide

Every portrait begins beneath the surface. The skull determines the proportions of everything you see — the height of the forehead, the width of the cheekbones, the depth of the eye sockets, the protrusion of the brow. When a portrait looks flat or unconvincing, the cause is almost always a failure to understand what lies underneath the skin.

Think of the skull as a sphere for the cranium with a wedge attached below for the jaw. The cranium accounts for roughly two-thirds of the head height; the face occupies the lower third. This immediately corrects one of the most common errors in portrait painting: making the forehead too small.

The eye sockets are deep, recessed cavities. Light enters them from above and bounces very little back — which is why the eye area almost always falls into shadow even in bright frontal lighting. Understanding this saves you from the common mistake of painting eyes as flat, bright shapes.

The cheekbones project outward and slightly forward. They catch the light on their uppermost surface and then turn sharply away into shadow. This is what gives a face its three-dimensionality. When you paint those shadow planes next to the lit cheek, you are describing that turning edge.

The brow ridge projects beyond the eye sockets, casting a shadow downward over the top of the eye. In almost every lighting situation, the upper eyelid will sit in partial shadow from this overhang. Ignoring this makes eyes look bug-like and expressionless.