Through the years I have receive countless emails asking how do I draw? How do I capture such realistic features and how is it they can't seem to do the same thing? My answer: It's all in the pencil!

Well, that's not completely true.

It's knowing the human anatomy from the frame (bones), the muscles and most important, taking your time to follow the contour in front of you, in order for the drawing to jump off the page.

I draw using lines and cross-hatching. Keeping the pencil sharp at all times and never blend or spear the graphite when it comes to the person you are drawing.

The drawing shown here measures approx. 4.25” x 6.25" and was worked on in between other commissioned drawings. This is Felix. A rancher and firefighter in one of the southern states, here in The United States.

For any artist who is serious about capturing every detail in his work, it is important to get up close and view every part of the model’s body . This is where drawing from photos comes in handy. Whether it’s the hardness of a nipple, the deep veins in his arms, or the fold in his jeans, detail is a must when drawing a realistic portrait or figure drawing.

And you don’t have to draw everything in the photo! Often focusing on an area of interest makes for a more dramatic pencil drawing, as seen here of Felix holding a saddle.

A professional firefighter, rancher, and model, Felix, was one of the first models I approached who jumped at a chance to be drawn for this book project. A man in his 40s, his poses offer more than some of the more youthful friends I have drawn in the past.

It’s important to capture the tightness of his abs and the deep veins in his arm as holds the saddle since that’s the focal point here. And again, if you follow the contour of his body, your drawing will have a realistic 3-D feel about it.

Since there are no eyes for me to start on this drawing, I chose his arm pit to be the center of the drawing. Here, the darkest shadows spread out across his arm and allows the veins to come alive.

That same shadow also travels down his chest and ans until it disappears under the top of his jeans.

Drawing veins is fairly easy. It’s just time consuming compared to the rest of this small 4.25” x 6.25" drawing.

Use your lighter pencils to shape his upper arm muscles and in doing so, add the shadow so you don’t have any stopping points on the arm. It’s extremely important in a small drawing such as this to get ever detail right.

With a larger drawing you don’t have to worry about detail such as veins or the nail of his finger but since those are what make up this small drawing you have no choice but to get it right the first time.

Several layers will be placed on his arm as the veins start to jump off the page. Using darker pencils up against a highlighted areas, they slowly start to appear before your eyes.

As you have learned by now, your lighter blending pencil (2h and 4h), as well as your kneaded rubber eraser have become your best friend. The eraser is easily formed to the shape you want to be lifted from the drawing. Such as a ‘C’ shape or fine point to be pressed against the paper and your highlight appears.

Crosshatching comes into play here even for his abs and stomach as shadows slowly lighten up to reveal his deep rich tan.

If there were body hair (which there aren’t in this model) you would have used a medium range pencil to bring out each hair. This time we are safe to say this drawing works well without the body hair.

If you look close under his navel you will see two veins. One in the center of his flat stomach and a smaller one just barely seen, to the side of the navel. Details such as this are very important, especially when drawing a fit athletic build individual.

Dealing with a background it’s very important that it doesn’t over power the image in the foreground but rather help it.

Using lighter pencils for the background is a good idea when the object is up against the person such as seen here.

Keeping with the natural grain of the wood, follow the shading with both the tip of a sharp pencil as well as the edge of the pencil. The tip making for a sharp strong detail in the wood and the softer side helping to blend the grays and shadows where the planks over lay each other.

Using the same pencil for the side of the barn and the man’s arm can be a challenge if you aren’t familiar with how lighting effects an object.

Go ahead and use the same gray tones but be sure they don’t blend into each other. Dark hairs on his arm help to separate the lighter grays in his arm that match the wooden slats.

The best part about drawing wood, is you don’t have to worry about making it perfect. But you do need to make it look like wood. Each grain is different, due to the growth of the tree and the cut from the saw.

You may find yourself attempting several layers of gray before you reach the gray needed to create the brown leather saddle, so be patient. After all this is a small drawing.

The belt attached to Felix’s jeans have both leather and metal to draw, and the leather belt strap has a pattern to it so be careful you don’t shade over the design, or it will turn out to be just another strap.

The carving in the belt buckle is captured in the photo with the aide of shadows and reflected light. When lighting in an object is too bright and prevents you from seeing the detail, you need to decided how much will you draw as you see or fill in areas you know should be seems. A choice only the artist can make.

By now you are asking, just how detail can this guy get into a small drawing, and my answer is a lot!

Notice how the leather chaps, the saddle, jeans and the texture of his skin are all different. Another important detail that if not other wise there, people would notice it missing from the drawing, but seeing them together as here, they may not notice at all.

Yes, people are that odd and picky.