Drawing children can be a lovely project but be warned, they can be difficult subjects to draw. This is predominantly because their features are very distinct in comparison to those of babies and adults. They also have an energy that is difficult to capture and portray in a portrait.

 

When drawing children, remember to take a good look at the child, before you even begin to start your project in earnest. Ask yourself, what makes this child different from others? Notice hair cut, hair length, shape of eyes and shape of the face. Think about the characteristics of the child and how you can capture them. You also need to be aware of how they sit and move in generally as this will start giving you extra sensory information.

 

1. Firstly, we should look at the child’s head, and take some measurements as to the child’s proportion so that your drawing may be as accurate as possible. This is really simple to do, simply hold out a pencil at arms length and then measure where specific points on the pencil are in connection to your thumb. Record these measurements and you should be able to work fairly accurately from these.

 

2. When drawing the child’s face, make sure you leave out aging marks which you would normally add on a portrait of an adult as children obviously do not have these lines. Remember that their eyes are very much the essence of the child, so try to capture this on paper; they are often very expressive and full of innocence.

 

3. When it comes to the body, children are so different to that of an adult because they are softer and less angled. Therefore, take this into consideration when drawing the body, make it softer and rounded and a child’s proportions are also much smaller so this is another time where measurement should be taken to ensure that you capture your model’s likeness.

 

4. Trying to get a child to pose for you may be extremely difficult. It may be wise to take quite a few photos first and capture the child at play as well as sitting still.

 

Be prepared that you may have to make a few attempts before finding the right pose for capturing the child’s spirit and likeness, although it is a difficult task, the result sometimes can make it all worth.