How to Draw a Portrait (Side On)

In this portrait drawing tutorial, we'll sketch a profile (side-on) view of a man without using any help from tracing, grids or a proportional divider.

Although I use charcoal pencils on a colored ground for this sketch, you can easily follow along with regular graphite pencils and a white piece of drawing paper. Most of this lesson is about the lay-in rather than the shading side of things. Enjoy!

Materials You'll Need

• A piece of sketching paper (I use tan paper by Strathmore so that I can add white charcoal at the end, but you can easily follow along with white paper and graphite pencils).
• A black charcoal or carbon pencil and a white charcoal pencil (although as above you can follow along with just regular graphite pencils).
• An eraser.
• A sharpener (craft knife and sandpaper is best for charcoal and carbon pencils).

Download Reference Photos

• Download Reference photo
• Download My finished sketch