How to draw various hairstyles

What a magnificent range of hair styles there is - artistic, weird, tangled, wild, neat, and glorious. Drawing hair at close-quarters requires keen observation and ability to simplify what is seen.

Fig 1                                                                                                                                                                                                    Fig 2

Have a look at the sketches in Figure 1. The style on top left is of a man with silver wavy locks drawn simply by means of a few lines, like those of the long-haired blonde opposite him. Shadows are depicted by slightly increasing the number of lines. This is more noticeable in the example of a pony-tail style in the left corner of the drawing. Black or very dark hair should not be drawn as a solid mass. It's best to leave highlights as shown on the other illustrations in Figure 1. Three of the hair styles have been produced by pen and brush in Figure 2. The broken, rough line effect is achieved by what is known as dry brush technique.

A fairly thick drawing ink is used on a small, good quality 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 required. A similar effect can be achieved with a soft pencil on rough-surfaced cartridge paper.

Fig 3

Fig 4

An effective method of drawing fine strands of hair is to use a technique of impressing thin lines into the paper with a sharp pencil point or pen and ink. Remember, when sketching hair that it reflects strong lights and has several degrees of tone. Those go from dense black through medium grey to white. Study the examples in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Drawing women's hair - Young women especially, may change their hair styles frequently. Some of them grow marvellous tresses which at first glance might appear to be difficult to draw. It's a straight-forward task with proper observation and patience.

The sketch on figure 3 women's hair) show masses of fine lines, most of which are curved and show the way the locks fall. There are a plenty of dark tones, but a lot of white paper was also allowed to show through.

Next, turn your attention to the men's heads in Figure 4. The technique is just the same but there's less hair.

The pen drawing on the top is of a man with curly, dark hair. Study how the waves have been recorded, and the way lines go back at the sides of the head.

The sketch on the bottom is of a man with light coloured locks which are swept across the head. Not much pen work is used here. Try these with pencil or pen and ink as a practise lesson.