Portrait Drawing

Faces, heads,
and the planes between them.

The face is the hardest subject in drawing and the one you'll never finish learning. drawingStud.io gives you timed portrait practice across sacred art, classical painting, and photographic references — with filters for age, gender, ethnicity, and emotion so you can drill whatever feature you're currently weakest on.

Start a Portrait Session

How to use this for portraits

Open the studio and pick Humans from the category tiles. Inside, filter by subject: Portrait for face/bust-only references, Saints & Historical for sacred-art portraits, or leave it open for a mixed draw. Drill down further with age and gender if you want focused practice.

For portrait work specifically, short timers (30–60 seconds) help you fight the tendency to over-render eyes. Longer timers (5–10 minutes) are where you actually solve the head. Alternate.

Suggested filters
  • Source: Paintings only — for the master-study angle
  • Source: Photos only — for realism practice
  • Subject: Portrait — face & bust-focused
  • Emotion: Rotate through each — builds range

Featured Saints

Start a drawing session with any of these. Six are shown — browse all 364 in the directory.

From the Blog

Tutorials, iconography primers, and notes on sacred art practice.

Start drawing now

Open the studio, pick a category, set a timer, and go. It's free to start.

Open the Studio