How to draw faces worksheets: 40 guided pages for portrait practice

How to draw faces becomes far less mysterious with these 40 step by step worksheets for graphite pencil. First you measure the head and construct it with the ball and plane approach. Then come eyes, noses, mouths, ears and hair, followed by shading, expressions and one complete portrait you are guided through.

Nothing is dated. You get US Letter and A4 versions as an instant PDF download, ready to print at home whenever you want to sit down and practice.

How to draw faces with proportion first, detail second

Thirds and fifths come first. After that, a sphere with flat side planes becomes your basic head, turned to face you, angled three-quarter or seen in profile. Features land where they belong long before you add detail.

Each feature gets its own step page: new lines are marked in pink, a pale gray copy waits to be traced and empty boxes let you try it alone. Pages on values, light and shading explain where the shadows go. Eight emotions and three life stages reveal how small shifts change an entire face. To keep momentum, you also get six empty heads to reuse, a transfer method using a grid, a month of daily prompts and a log for tracking how far you have come.

Who these portrait drawing pages are for

• Adult beginners who dream of sketching people but feel stuck on getting proportions right
• Hobby artists comfortable sketching objects who now want to draw people
• Anyone coming back to drawing who learns better from clear step pictures than from videos
• Sketchbook fans building a daily portrait habit through a 30-day challenge

Design and printing

• Elegant, minimal look: crisp white backgrounds with gentle blush pink touches that save ink
• Wide margins all around, so a home printer will not cut anything off
• Two portrait sizes: US Letter (8.5 x 11 in) and A4 (210 x 297 mm)
• Undated, so any page can be repeated as often as you wish
• Faint gray guides and construction marks you draw on top of, not coloring pages
• Keep it in a binder or on a clipboard, or ask a copy shop to add a spiral binding
• Paper tip: smooth drawing paper around 120 gsm (80 lb text) handles shading and erasing well, fed singly via the manual tray. Plain paper is fine for quick drills and templates

Inside the how to draw faces worksheets: 40 pages

1. 1Cover page with the contents
2. 2Getting started, with supplies to gather, tips for printing, a relaxed 20 minute practice routine, six golden rules and a box for your own reason for starting
3. 3Pencil warm-up, featuring ghost lines, round and oval shapes you trace then copy, a 2H to 6B grade strip and five swatches of texture
4. 4Head proportions in thirds and fifths, a labeled head seen from the front, eight key measurements, a blank head to copy them onto and a worksheet for measuring a photo
5. 5Ball and plane construction in six pictured stages, then that same build shown at four angles
6. 6Facing forward, built in six stages that turn a plain sphere into a complete face
7. 7Practice for the forward view, two pale gray heads ready to draw over and two empty boxes for working freehand
8. 8The three-quarter angle, demonstrated in six stages
9. 9Practicing the three-quarter angle toward both sides, guided heads plus empty boxes
10. 10Side profile, demonstrated in six stages
11. 11Practicing side profiles toward both sides, guided heads plus empty boxes
12. 12Tilting the head, with six examples gazing upward, downward or leaning to one side on curved guidelines, and two practice boxes
13. 13Drawing an eye in six stages, starting with an almond outline and finishing with lashes, the brow and tone, plus one tracing box and two practice boxes
14. 14Eyes seen six ways, forward, angled, side on, gazing up, gazing down and shut, every one beside a practice box
15. 15Drawing both eyes together, a traceable pair and four rows with eye-width spacing marks
16. 16Drawing a nose in six stages, from a basic wedge shape to neat shading, plus tracing and practice boxes
17. 17Noses seen four ways, forward, angled, side on and from below, every one beside a practice box
18. 18Drawing lips and the mouth in six stages, plus tracing and practice boxes
19. 19Mouths shown six ways, forward, angled, side on, with a smile, mid laugh and in surprise, every one beside a practice box
20. 20Drawing an ear in four stages, where ears belong on side and angled heads, plus two boxes for practice
21. 21Eyebrows, showing which way the hairs grow, six shapes of brow, four empty outlines you fill with fine strokes, and two practice boxes
22. 22How hair flows, taught in four stages, with ribbon forms you fill using strands, boxes for practice and space for notes
23. 23Curly textures and braids, with wavy, ringlet and coiled hair, a braid built in four stages, two sample heads and boxes to practice
24. 24Short and straight hair, four sample cuts and four pale heads for designing styles yourself
25. 25Tones and shading with pencil, a scale in five steps, a gradient in nine and five shading methods
26. 26Mapping light on a head, a sphere and a face with labels, then an empty sphere and face for your own shading
27. 27Face shading with the light coming from either side, five stages and notes
28. 28Expressions, a single face showing eight feelings: joy, laughter, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust and doubt, with notes
29. 29Practicing expressions on eight pale construction heads, one per emotion
30. 30How faces change with age, comparing a child, a grown-up and an elderly person, with checklists and three practice heads
31. 31 and 32A complete portrait walked through in 8 stages, from the starting sphere to hair masses, shadow masses and depth
32. 33A page for your own portrait, including a ten point check, date, reference used, time taken and what made you proud
33. 34Transferring with a grid, a gridded portrait to copy from, a 4 x 5 enlarging grid and five steps
34. 35 to 37Empty heads to reuse, six pale constructions shown forward, tilted, angled and side on
35. 38A month long portrait challenge tracker with a small daily task
36. 39Progress gallery, six little frames to display work and a log to record improvement
37. 40Portrait checklist, ten frequent fixes, a checklist of your own and notes

What you download

• Face Proportions & Portrait Drawing Worksheets, US Letter PDF (40 pages)
• Face Proportions & Portrait Drawing Worksheets, A4 PDF (40 pages)
• Read Me First, a short PDF printing guide

How to download and print

• Check out with PayPal, a debit or credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your download page opens as soon as the payment goes through.
• We email the same private download links to you, so you can download your files again later.
• Open the PDF in a free reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader and print at 100% or Actual size.
• Print only the pages you need, as often as you like, for your own personal use.

Good to know

• This PDF is meant to be printed and worked on in pencil. It has no hyperlinks and it is not a coloring book.
• This is a digital product. Nothing physical will be shipped.
• Printed colors may look a little different from your screen.
• The files are for your own personal use, so please keep them to yourself and do not resell them.
• Digital files are non-returnable. If a file refuses to open or prints wrongly, email us and we will help right away.
• You supply your own pencils, erasers and paper.
• The example faces are simple teaching drawings that show proportion. None of them depicts a real person.

How this was made

Designed and written by PetiteDiary. AI tools helped draft parts of the text, and some background scenes in the preview images were created with AI. Every page was designed, reviewed and checked before release.

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