Hair is fun but it can be a challenge. It is fun because your pencil marks are nearly identical to hair and you get quick results, and a reward, for each mark you make.

I have posted here an outline and a few hairs on the left side of the drawing. I have darkened it because I used a 2h lead in a .o7 mechanical pencil and you barely could see it in the first scan I did.

You can also notice I do the left side first because I am right handed. I won't come as near accidentally smudging the rest of the drawing when I start on the left side and go to the right. I'm sure most people know they can also put another piece of paper under their hand as they draw. Just don't let the paper move. Let your hand move on the second piece of paper.

As you can see in the cropped enlagement I leave the white spaces last and draw in the darker hair and shadows first. Then I come back and do more detailed drawing of the negative space around the white hairs.

I thought I would stop and scan here. I have made most of my marks in the direction of the growth of the hair. But you might can see where I have gone back and forth. This seems to help in shading and the highlight areas.

I went to hb lead because the 2h was too light and the hb isn't too dark. I will darken areas later.

I hope this is large enough for you to see the lines. You can get satisfactory results with different methods of shading. What I was concerned with here mostly is length and direction of the hair. I don't want to get the lines too solid or it won't have the texture of hair.

Bob,you sure that's a hair? Look like a "Guinea pig" to me! Oh,,I'm sorry; you spell that H-A-R-E don't you!?!

Hey there, haven't see you around in a while.

I've used the 4b to darken the hair. It's tricky keeping the texture of the hair and darking it at the same time. I'm still going both ways with the shading but mostly in the direction of hair growth.

The highlight around the nose is beginning to show.

I love the step by step ..I think I will try it

I went from the 4b to 6b drawing pencil and darkened the darkest areas. I'm calling this finished. I don't like the shadow in the up right background but its too late now.

I did a crop from a larger file so you can see the lines better.

A nice step by step.

Cheers.

Paul

NICE! Since I draw a lot of cats, drawing the fur is an important thing. You have to draw it in the direction of hair growth to make a difference. Your little G Pig is poifect!

Hello!

BRB thank you very much for teaching me how to draw this detail. This is a usefull lesson and I'll practice a little and than I'll finish my portret of Gigi.


Best regards, Alina

BRB- thank-you for the great step-by-step on hair, it was very helpful.

Perhaps you should put this in a PDF format and add it to the Tutorial Library........................

I've never did that before. I don't even think I have a program that will do it. Can you tell me how and what I need?

You have to have a program that changes a word file into a pdf file. I don't have that program but perhaps if you write it up in a word file, you might find someone on here that has that program who would convert it for you. Give a yell or start a thread looking for someone with that program.

I’m sure you have always been told that all your pencil marks must always go in the direction of the hair growth. This is not true! There is a place where you can use a different technique and that is when you do highlights. About a third of my marks in the picture of Gigi were drawn in the opposite direction of hair growth. It is easier for me to do highlights by going into the highlight from both sides of the highlight and this means making my marks go opposite of the direction of growth.

I’m not saying that you can’t do highlights with out going into the highlight. I’m saying that it is easier for me. If anyone can do highlights without going into the highlight I’d like to see a close up of their pencil marks.

Below is an example of three types of strokes with 2b lead in a 0.5mm mechanical pencil.

1. I made the marks in both directions but I tried to lower and raise the pencil gradually so there isn’t a lot of sense of direction. You can use this method doing highlights.
2. I made the marks in only one direction: upward. But again I tried to lower and raise the pencil gradually so there isn’t a lot of sense of direction.
3. I made these marks by letting my pencil almost rest on the paper before making a mark. That is why it is easy to tell the direction of the mark. This is what you want to avoid in doing highlights if you go into the highlight in the opposite direction of hair growth. This is why instructors tell you to make you marks in the direction of hair growth. The beginning of a hair is always thicker than the tips of the hairs.

That's how I do it too. Of course because I work in color mostly, I start out with the lighter colors and then gradually add darker tones. Sometimes I just like to go nuts with color when drawing hair too. Just to give my art a kind of personal touch.