How to Draw Clothes and Make Them Look Real

My wife took this photo the other day and I just loved it! it's one of those pictures taken by acident that capture the innocence of the child.

I just love the look on Emily's face, but in this drawing my goal was to get the dress to look as real as possible. Most of my drawing tutorials are on the facial features. The face is important, but getting the clothes to look real takes some practice.

If you take a good look, you will notice the parts of the dress are out of focus a little. So I want to make the drawing look the same. In order to get this effect, I had to soften some of my pencil marks and loose some of the defining lines. Of course it helps if you have a good eraser! The eraser of choice is my handy dandy gummy eraser.

As in all my other tutorials, I've taken the time to outline the drawing. After getting it the way I want, I began on the left side. I always say, "start on one side, preferably the opposite of which hand you use." Working with a dark lead, it tends to get messy, so you have to work around that. The best way to avoid the mess is to keep from dragging the palm of your hand through your work.

The first picture is pretty far along, but I want you to take a close look at the two different sides of Emily's face. The right side of the picture (her left) is sort of flat looking. The left side has a rounded look, almost as if the drawing is coming out of the page. This effect is achieved by getting the values correct in reference to the photo. In other words, if the picture appears darker, make your drawing darker. But be careful not to get it too dark!

Another way to get the lines right is to use a tortillion. I use these all the time. They resemble the shape of a pencil, without the lead. Most of them have a point on each end. Some of the smaller ones used mainly for small areas such as the eyes, have a point on one end. The tortillion is used to smudge the pencil marks and blend it smoothly. Again, this takes practice, but if you use it properly, you will be amazed as to the results.

Working with the clothes is no different than drawing the face. You have to pay attention to the different values on your reference photo. I like to put the photo next to my drawing so I can see the photo using my peripheral vision. By doing this, I can make the finished piece a more accurate representation of the photo.

If you look at the drawing where the arms are on top of the dress, you will notice a definite line. Sometimes it is necessary to do this, but not always. There are many places on the face for example you shouldn't use definitive lines. Around the nose is a good example. The nostrils might need a definitive line, but as the nose travels up the face, only shading and the tortillion will be used to make the nose look like a nose!

For the clothes, especially the fringe on the dress, I used much softer lines. I wanted the dress to appear to fade into the background, as in the photo. I did this by softening the pressure on my pencil and using the tortillion in addition to my pencil. Once you have some pencil marks on the page, the tortillion can pick up the extra pencil marks and you can continue to change the value in your drawing. I particularly had fun in drawing the pleats in Emily's dress.