HOW to DRAW REALISTIC EARS with Pencil in 5 MINUTES! (#DrawingFacialFeatures​​​ with Karen Campbell)

Want me to teach you how to draw realistic ears with pencil in just FIVE minutes?! LET'S DO IT!!

In today's step by step lesson, we're going to be drawing 5 ears in real time. If you've always wanted to learn how to draw a face, have been struggling to work drawing practice into your daily life, or need to add MORE FUN into your art practice, THIS SERIES IS FOR YOU!!

​We're in week four of the 5 in 5 Drawing Facial Features series, and focusing on ear drawing (EASY and QUICK)! 

I'm actually super surprised by how much I ENJOYED this week's ear drawing practice!! I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but I have to say I kinda LOVED drawing them, and this week might be my favorite in the series so far. 

​I think it totally has to do with the shading, and just how FAST we can knock each one of these babies out!! Each one took me around 4 minutes. ​

​Make sure you download my 20-page drawing practice packet so you can draw right along with me. It's got all the ear drawing reference images for this week, and for every other week in the series. It's yours, FREE. Simply click the button below, and I'll send it straight to your inbox! 
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​Even though I'm on week four of the series, don't feel like you're behind if you are just discovering this. These drawing exercises are for YOU to do on your own time, at your own pace. There is no schedule, just FUN!!

All you need to do the drawing exercises in my 5 in 5 Practice Packet is basically a good eraser and a pencil. You totally don't have to get fancy. 

Before we continue, super quick announcement! All product links noted below are Affiliate. I may earn a small commission if you choose to order through these links, but by law there is never any additional cost to the consumer for doing so. I only reccommend products I actually use and love. Thank you for your support! 

If you are interested in some fancier drawing tools - I'm using my favorite Blackwing pencil, vanish eraser, and Tombow Mono Eraser (that's the one that looks like a mechanical pencil, but is an eraser!). This thing is seriously magical for chiseling out teensy highlights!!!

If you have a blending stump - get your dirtiest one ready! If you don't have one - no problem, use your finger or a q-tip to help you with blending.

I've had a lot of people ask about the portfolio I'm using to store my practice pages in (see above), so here's the link if you're interested in that too! Don't feel pressured to grab that. Any old folder will do! 

I'm pulling out my phone to set my timer because I'm trying to get away from perfectionism with these facial feature drawing exercises. For me this is more about trying to establish a daily art practice, and showing YOU that it CAN be done ;)

If you're someone who tends to think you need to set aside large chunks of time to work on your art, and subsequently aren't doing anything, or are doing very little (don't worry- this is SUPER common), you definitely need to watch episode one in this series, because I talked a lot about mindset shift. It's at the heart of WHY I'm doing this series.

Ok! Let's draw. As you can see, above, ears typically start with a variation of the letter "C."  Then I work my way around the inner folds, lay down a little graphite for shading and that's about it. Easy, right?

If you're new to the series, each week I've been reminding people drawing along with me (I HOPE you are!!) to focus on these three things:

1. SHAPE - focus on the outline of your ear drawing
2. VALUE - make sure you're using darks and lights to shade
3. DETAILS - add highlights and finishing touches to make it pop

(FYI - there aren't many details when it comes to the ears, unless you're adding in earrings - like we do in the very last exerise for today). 

I don't know about you, but when I get up close and personal with the ear like this, the whole thing totally doesn't make sense!  Ears are wierd, right?!

Oh well! Whenever I start thinking stuff like this while I'm drawing, I tell myself to just ignore that thought. It doesn't need to make sense-  I  just need to draw it. I tell my students that too!! Just be systematic with it,  and go one wierd fold at a time. 

Make sure you click over to watch this ear drawing tutorial so we can do these ear drawings step by step together. Everything is in real time (no sped up timelapsing) to help you out. If you feel like anything is going too fast, pause whenever you need to. 

I'm really noticing a consistent pattern from week to week when I do these drawing exercises. The first drawing is like a warm up and by the last one I feel like I'm on FIRE! Lol!
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Practice really is a "thing," and you DO become a better artist with the more practice you do!

After you get your main ear shape down, it's ok to scribble some graphite down to just get things started- then you can drag the graphite around with your blending stump to smooth things out. ​

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Ears are really great for drawing practice with the value scale because they are a convaluted mix of highlights and shadows around crazy shapes.

Drawing ears feels very similar in a way to drawing noses or drawing hands because these features don't have hard lines and they really don't come to life until you start shading them. That's where the magic happens!!!

For the last ear drawing image today, I'm going to show you how to draw ears with earrings. It's really not that much different -it's just a bit more detail to play with at the end!

When I got to the earring part of this drawing I switched over to my mechanical pencil because the lead is thinner. 

​Here's a quick look at all of the ear drawing images for today- all done! I HOPE you're drawing along with me. I can't wait to see how you do!

Be sure to post your progress in the Facebook Group for Awesome Art School. Thanks SO much for hanging out with me today!! 

I'll see you back here NEXT Monday for our next facial feature...

​Have a wonderful week!!! 

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