Learn to draw the proportions of a child’s face

How does a child’s face is different from that of an adult, what distinguishes them from each other?

A simple exercise to do is draw a child and an adult on the same sheet, so as to better see the differences.

Here is a sketch of a mother and her young child.

Just with the outline, without seeing the details, we can already see the face of the child and the mother. What are the differences?

The adult’s face is more rectangular, more stretched in height.

The child’s face is rounder, approaching the proportions of a square.

The most striking difference is the level of the eyes in the face.

In children, the eyes are located in the center of the height of the face, while in the mother’s, eyes are higher, at about two-thirds the height of the face.

A fun little exercise to do: Draw a simplified form of head, a simple oval shape, and repeat this shape three times on the sheet of paper. Now, draw two points for the eyes in each of these ovals. For the first drawing, place eyes very low, below the center of the height; in the second, put them in the center and in the third, draw the eyes much higher than the center. This will give, in a very simplified way, a baby’s face, a child’s face and an adult’s face.

Back to our drawing of a child and a mother. By continuing to draw details, other differences appear in the child’s face: eyes are a little bigger, while the nose is much smaller, the mouth is smaller also, the chin is considerably less pronounced and slightly back, and finally, the cheeks are full and rounded.

Do you see other differences?

 

Portrait of a young shepherdess and a shepherd child

Let us sketch the outline of a young shepherdess.

According to eye level, we can guess that she is not far from pre-teen.

Let’s play a little game: move the eye level in the face, without changing its contours. How old would be the young shepherdess if her eyes were placed higher, as shown below.

And how old would she be now if these eyes were placed much lower.

And now what age difference could there be between the young shepherdess and shepherd child below.

 

Portrait of a girl

I begin by sketching the outline of a girl’s face.

I realize that I drew the eyes a little higher compared to the photo that inspired me, so that the girl seems a little older on my drawing.

I know that I just have to erase the eyes and redraw them a little lower to make the girl younger.

But since I already spent some time improving the proportions of the eyes, and I’m too lazy to start over, I’m looking for another way to get the same result without moving the eyes.

A simple little trick: enlarge the top of the head and forehead, and slightly reduce the chin, so the eyes are placed a little lower without having had to move them!

This is the result of the modification:

Now that the proportions have been corrected on the sketch, I can finish the drawing.

 

Another portrait of girl

All images on this page were made by drawing from pictures of the very touching book by the photographer Phil Borges: Enduring Spirit, created for Amnesty International and published by Rizzoli International Publications

Visit the Phil Borges website:
http://www.philborges.com