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Learn to draw

Drawing and painting: hair styles

What a magnificent range of hair styles there are - artistic weird tangled, wild, neat and glorious. Some of those worn by men aren't bad either. Draw hair at close observation and simplify what is seen. Mostly it will be a matter of suggesting fashion.

There are many different hair styles people adopt according to their age. Sketching hair styles is quite simple but it is exacting. You need to practise a little technical draughtsmanship. There are countless hair designs around to observe.

It is best to study the shape of the head and how the growth of hair, whether it is soft or thick or lose. Have a look at the styles in Fig. 1 The top left is of a gentleman with silver wavy locks which have been created by means of a few lines, like those of the long-haired blonde opposite him on the right. Shadows are depicted by slightly increasing the number of thin lines. This is more noticeable in the example of a pony-tail style shown on the left.

Black or very dark hair should not be drawn or painted as a solid mass shown on the right corner. It's best to leave highlights in, as shown on the two illustrations at the bottom marked A and B. All these hair styles are produced by pen and brush. The broken rough line effect is achieved by what is known as a dry brush technique.

A fairly thick drawing ink is used on a small, good qual ity paint brush. This is first loaded with ink and then most of the contents are wiped off on a piece of scrap paper. When the bristles are almost dry the brush is dragged across the area of the picture as needed. The result is rather like that obtained with charcoal, which is also an excellent medium for portraits and figures.

A similar effect can be achieved with a soft 4B pencil on rough surfaced cartridge paper. Points to remember when sketching hair, it reflects strong lights and several degrees of tone. These go from dense black through medium grey to white. Some of them grow marvellous tresses which at first glance might appear to be difficult to draw or paint.

Turn your attention to the men's head in Fig. 2A on the left side corner. The technique is just the same. Notice how the waves have been recorded and the way the lines go back at the sides of the head.

Fig 2B - female figure on right in colour depicts the highlights of the hair - a simple coat of light orange colour applied to show the texture of the skin.

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