Drawing Realistic Portraits from Photographs Review

I have a totally fun item to share with you today from Timberdoodle, Drawing Realistic Portraits from Photographs!  This DVD art class is geared for children ages 8 and up (3rd grade and beyond) and can be counted as a 1/4 credit for high school students.  This program contains 15 step-by-step lessons with a runtime of 117 minutes.

In this program students will learn - how to draw accurate guidelines, realistically place shading, and blend and add detail to create beautiful portraits.

What materials do you need?  It is recommended to have a 2-ply smooth Bristol Board,  0.5mm mechanical pencil, 2B soft 05mm lead, blenders, kneadable eraser, ellipse template, and a soft paint brush to complete this course.  A found the blenders to be a crucial component.

And of course, students need a photograph as their reference.  A choose an old photograph of my maternal grandfather, her great grandfather.  

In the first few lessons, A learned about the materials, having accurate guidelines and shading.  Then, she learned about drawing the different parts of the face.  And finally, she had to put all the skills together to create her final portrait.

A with her shading

A closer view...

 

Drawing a mouth from a photograph

Drawing a nose

Drawing an ear

 

Some more practice drawings...

 

Drawing eyes, you can see how much she is improving between the 1st and 2nd attempt.

A's first portrait attempt (putting it all together).

 

She is a little off on the mouth and chin but I don't think this is bad for a first portrait attempt at all!  She is already practicing and working on her next attempt.  She knows she needs to slow down and take her time with the details.  I can't wait to see it.

This program is specifically designed to help children who want to draw portraits but never felt like they had the talent.  Honestly, I feel like adults who want to draw would really enjoy this program too!  I love that specific drawing skills are taught (all the intricacies of drawing faces - mouth, nose, ears, eyes, hair, etc.) and that you can work at your own pace!  You get to practice, practice, practice.  Check out the fun trailer for this program below for more information and to get a feel for inside the lessons!

Drawing Realistic Portraits from Photographs is currently included in Timberdoodle's 12th grade curriculum kit and it is such a fun program that we definitely recommend.  And remember, it counts as 1/4 high school credit.

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Drawing Realistic Portraits from Photographs in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.