Learn About Drawing Lips and the Mouth potx

What makes the lips and mouth challenging to draw is that we often see them as flat, when they're actually curved.. To start this drawing lips lesson let's look at the bone structure tha

Learn About Drawing

Lips and the Mouth

Drawing lips requires a lot of attention to detail in order to create a mouth that looks both natural and convincing What makes the lips and mouth challenging to draw is that we often see them as flat, when they're actually curved Another problem is that the lips can form a variety of different

shapes depending on the expression of the subject

To start this drawing lips lesson let's look at the bone structure that makes up the mouth

The Jaw and Teeth

The jaw is the only bone in the head that actually moves It attaches to the rest of the head just in front of the lower part of the ear The 'U' shape of the jaw can be compared to a horseshoe

The teeth also fit this 'U' shape and it is important to remember this when drawing lips and the mouth at all times If you have a piece of bread

somewhere I would suggest taking a large bite out of it and look at just how round the shape of your mouth really is! I have been guilty of drawing 'flat' mouths in my own work, but before I realized how round the mouth is I wasn't sure where I was going wrong in my drawings

The teeth in your mouth drawing should never have dark lines indicating each individual tooth It is ok to indicate some shading on the teeth close to the outer parts where the teeth begin to disappear under the lips This will help to give depth to your mouth

The Lips

Now that we have the shape of the mouth clearly in our minds, let's examine the structure of the lips and see how they fit over those bones The upper lip

is a little like an 'M' and the lower lip a little like a 'W' The lips stretch over the teeth so keep the round shape of the jaw and teeth in mind at all times - they're important

Upper Lip

Start the upper lip with two upside down 'U' curves and remember to draw lightly Now draw two smaller 'U' curves but this time draw them right side

up The two curves attach to the bottom of each of the first curves They should be much smaller than the first curves you drew These will make the

little bump you see in the middle of the lip The last thing to do is erase the parts of the first curves that cross into the smaller curves you just created

Lower Lip

Like the upper lip, we'll draw a curve and cur away a small part of it with another curve This time the main curve will be 'U' shaped, and the small part to cut will be the upside down 'U'

That's it for the basic shape of drawing lips

Let's take a look at drawing lips from the side Notice that the front lip sticks out more than the lower lip This is true in most cases Remember that the

lips follow the teeth and in most people the upper teeth lay over the lower ones in a natural over bite For people with an under bite this rule does not apply The lower lip will stick out more than the upper lip