How to Draw The Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa - also know as 'La Giocanda'... is one of - if not THE - most famous works of art on the planet. Painted in the Italian Renaissance period, during the early 16th Century - it is believed to have taken da Vinci almost 16 years to complete!
Here in this lesson, I've put together some steps to help you brainstorm and create a unique homage to this wonderful painting - of your own!
To the canvas!
First Step - A Study of Shapes which Compose the Mona Lisa
Just like how you might plan out a real oil painting - with a grid, shapes, lines, etc... BEFORE you actually lay down the paint... here we're doing something similar. These lines and shapes should help to give you a better understanding of how the various parts of the painting come together.
The first phase then, beginning with a picture frame...
While this looks rather strange at first - this arrangement of shapes and lines can really help to cement the form that your pen/pencil strokes should be working around. Notice how the green circle marks off here face - turned slightly to HER right.
Also, notice the positioning of her right hand - just adjacent to the centerline. And the orange arc... marking off - to some degree - where her hair can be drawn.
Really - you can use a pattern of your own if you like. Whichever works best for you!
Second Step - How to Draw The Mona Lisa
Beginning with her face, use these steps to guide you - as you slowly move forward, bringing into view a drawing (painting!) of your own.
Keep in mind - this is a simple cartoon representation. It's by no means an 'extremely close' likeness to the real thing. It does however depict those parts of the painting (most of them anyway) - that makes it easy to recognize as such.
Oh - one more thing. I added eyebrows in my version - but in the real version, there aren't any. In the final colored images, I made sure to leave them out.
Let's begin!
When all is said and drawn - the final product - colored and all... really makes it all worth the while. You'll notice I added some color variations that don't exactly show up in the real thing. The water in behind for example... not really sure it this is water - but I thought it would look neat.
All and all - a cartoon likeness to the real thing!
I hope you enjoyed the lesson. :-)
Recommended Drawing Resources
To further your learning and improvement, check out the following resources...
- Learn how to draw caricatures with Graeme Biddle.
- Discover how to use photoshop in a day. Makes everything so much simpler.
- Check out Chad Baldwin's digital painting techniques.
