The 8 Best Books To Learn Portrait Drawing (2023 reviews)

If you know how to draw but want to take your skills to the next level, and if reading instructions are hard for you, this book is for you. Whatever your skill level, artistic style, or even budget, Karen’s approach will have you drawing in no time at all. If you have always wanted to learn how to draw, and feel that you have zero natural talent, then this book is for you. It is great for beginners and even for those that are more skilled.

This is an art instruction book that should be in every artist library. It has more tips than a lot of the art education books that artist put out these days. If you think you can’t draw faces, this is the book for you. This book is a definite must have to any artist’s library.

Why We Like This:

Perfect resource for learning to draw faces
Learn to draw lips, eyes, ears, noses and hair
A must-have for any art student
Easy to read, learning step by step

Best For middle School Students: Debra Kauffman Yaun Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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Debra Kauffman Yaun is known for creating pragmatic and minimalist book for people on the go, and its line of debra kauffman yaun book to learn portrait drawing definitely falls in line with that reputation. This is a great book for beginners. It features, shading, and most of all teaches all different ages of subjects from babies to the elderly. It features, as well as angles. There are guide lines for placement of the features on the face for all ages groups and at different angles too. It is ideal for anyone aspiring to reach a new level of expertise.

There are several step-by-step instructions for faces and facial features. It is good gift for interested kids between 9-12 years old.

Why We Like This:

Gives great guidance for spanning age groups and difficult features like hair
A simple drawing guide for faces
Great reference material for drawing portraits

Best Art Book: Jake Spicer Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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The jake spicer book to learn portrait drawing should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This book is legitimately helpful in acquiring line drawing and shading skills, and it is actually quite cool. It's the kind of book that will kickstart your study of faces for a lifetime. It walks you through step by step and it's user friendly and very helpful. The studies and suggestions are creative, practical, and help you stretch your skill set.

The book lays flat to allow you to draw comfortably and has an elastic band to keep your drawings safe. There are more angles and a wider range of subjects so it will be a valuable addition to the course. It is also visually appealing overall.

Why We Like This:

Informative, well written, well structured, clever rubber band/bookmark
Precise and full of great training techniques
Delivers what they promise

Best For helping A future teacher: Carrie Stuart Parks Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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The carrie stuart parks book to learn portrait drawing is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily usage. If you are already a professional or even a weekend warrior portrait artist, this book will make you better. This book helps you draw what you see, and the outcome is vastly improved. It tells you the tools you need to measure for proper proportions and of course sample before and after drawings made from everyday people from young children to adults.

This book makes it very clear that anyone with good eyesight can learn to draw peoples' faces. It's easy to comprehend, giving practice exercises simple instructions and usually a step by step for understanding the dynamics of what you're drawing, not just reproducing the picture in front of you. This one book alone is enough to learn not only the face but other drawing techniques.

Why We Like This:

Best instruction for drawing realistic faces
Lot of satisfied buyers

Best instructional Book: mark Willenbrink Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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Next on the list, we've got yet another book that manages to win our hearts. It's the mark willenbrink book to learn portrait drawing and it's widely considered as one of the best convenient book you can buy. It truly is a beginner book and the bare bones to beginning sketches with observation. It covers perspective, techniques on drawing people, using texture, proportions, values, everything you need to know to learn how to draw. It covers the basics in a very well written way that makes it very usable for an adult, but is simplified enough for a child to benefit from it's use. It offers instruction, as well as understanding as to why use this particular pencil or pad, and why this process works easier than another and so forth.

This book would be good for a mid-teen to adult who is serious about studying the art of drawing. There are great illustrations that start with a simple straight line and circle and end up being a horse, cow, cat or dog. It truly is a beginner book with clear instruction and detail.

Why We Like This:

You learn light source, shading, perspective, composition, proportions, etc
Explores different concepts of drawing and makes it easy to understand with guided exercises
Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For achieving super realistic Drawings: Karen Hull Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate book. The karen hull book to learn portrait drawing is exactly that - it's a simple book that hits all the right notes. This is a very well done book on colored pencil portraits. It shows 7 different kinds of colored pencils and the way they can be interchanged in a drawing or painting. It is filled cover to cover with fantastic information, tips and techniques that any colored pencil artist will find invaluable.

This model has lovely rich skin tones, but if you’re working on a plum surface, you need to use brighter colors than you might use on white to ensure that these skin tones glow. There are clear close up pictures for each step. It is good references for the kind of detail one needs to create a realistic portrait. The results may not be exact but the techniques used are more important for your future drawings than exactly colour matching. This is a nice book to add to your art library.

Why We Like This:

A must have expecially for those loving portraits
Portraits, still lifes, animals or landscapes
Good investment for long term

Best price: Lee Hammond Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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The lee hammond book to learn portrait drawing is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your regular usage. This is an excellent book on drawing portraits including facial features, hair, skin, clothing, backgrounds, and even hands. It is easy to follow these step by steps by Lee Hammond. It is a great guide to not only drawing portraits, but making them lifelike. This is just so much fun, with no stress, as you are not comparing what you do with a person next to you.

Lee Hammond is an excellent artist and the book is very clear and easy to follow. This is an excellent book of easily understood directions and advice for achieving success in drawing portraits from photographs. This book teaches you how to draw each facial feature one at a time. It is a must to have if you want to learn drawing realistic faces.

Why We Like This:

A must have for all beginners who will ever draw faces
Teaches shading and goes through each part of the face
Highly recommend for beginning and returning artists

Best For Learning techniques: Rockridge press Book To Learn Portrait Drawing

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This informative and encouraging RockRidge press paperback is good for beginners. The range of subjects' ages, genders and nationalities in this book are well-balanced, sampling much of the variety a portrait artist may encounter. As you go throughout the book, it covers laying out faces and then moves onto different ways to shade them and make them look more realistic.

This book is done with easy-ish directions from beginning to end. It's more for an intermediate audience. This is a decent book for beginners. This is a really useful book for helping someone learn to draw human faces and heads. It is great for learning techniques.

Why We Like This:

Perfect fit for anyone who loves to see and do
Thirty minutes is a reasonable amount of time to work into a busy schedule
An excellent face drawing guide not only for beginners