Portrait Drawing Technique with Letter T

 Portrait Drawing Technique with Letter T - Cross Line

What is letter "T" technique in portrait drawing?

When you first learn portrait, you try to find some techniques for measurements and proportions. "The Cross" or letter "T" is one of the techniques. But how does it work? And why it's useful?

 The Horizontal Line:

It stands for the brows line. In the same time, it's the top line for the ears. 

The Vertical Line:

It stand for the nose line. You can extend the "T" to be a "cross line" to include the top of the head. As you can see in figure 1., the vertical line is divided equally into 3 parts (3 thirds) from top to bottom as below:

First part:

From hair line to brows line

Second part:

From brows line to bottom of the nose (nose line)

Third part:

From nose line to jaw line

These are the main lines that will result in true measurements for the face.

Figure 1. Letter T or the cross line

In below illustrations, you can find how helpful this technique is when the head is tilted aside. You can also tilt the letter T to match the angle of the face you're drawing.

Figure 2. Letter T with angle.

Figure 3. More angle

Figure 4. a hard angle of the head.

I've made some videos to explain more on this technique, so feel free to have a look. Before seeing the videos, prepare your sharpened pencil, paper and eraser. Pause the video or lower the speed to be able to follow a long. never forget, practice till it hurts, pain will finally go away, but it will stay forever if you give up.

The cross letter "T" determines the head pose

Drawing Portrait with Cross line (T) Technique

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