How to draw lips from the front, step by step

From the front, lips come down to three marks: the line where they meet, the top edge of the upper lip, and a short shadow under the lower lip. This guide takes the marks in order and gives each one a number read off ten drawn heads.

The heads are the ten bald heads in the free head rotation reference, read on their front pencil plates. A script traced the mouth line from corner to corner and found the shadow under the lower lip; we drew every trace back on its plate and checked each pick enlarged six times. The base of the nose, the peaks of the upper lip and the corners of the mouth come from our measurements for the philtrum and cupid's bow and face width proportions. We count only differences large enough to read clearly, especially at the tapering corners. The numbers describe ten bald drawings in one style, each with a closed, neutral mouth, not people's faces, so use them to check your own drawing rather than as rules.

1. Place the mouth line

Measure from the base of the nose, the dark line under its tip rather than the fainter curve below it, to the bottom of the chin. On the ten heads the mouth line falls about a third of the way down that space, usually a little short of it. Seven sit a little above the third, the full-lips head on it, and the gaunt-planes and deep-folds heads a little below it. A third of the way down makes a good first mark.

For the width, the corners sit under the irises on eight of the heads. Face width proportions has those numbers.

2. Draw the mouth line

The mouth line is the darkest line in the mouth: at the middle its darkest pencil is at least as dark as the shadow under the lower lip on all ten heads, and clearly darker on seven. It isn't straight, and three things shape it.

• A notch at the middle. Where the middle of the upper lip pushes down, the line dips. By eye there's a shallow notch on all ten heads; the trace finds a slight dip on nine, too small to measure reliably.
• Corners a little below the middle. On six heads each corner sits only a little below the middle of the line, so the line looks almost level. The corners drop further on the gaunt-planes head, further still on the heavy-jaw and minimal heads, and furthest on the hard-plane head. That last front is seen slightly from below, which turns the corners down further, as the mouth guide explains.
• Dark ends. The pencil is heavier at the corners than along the two halves on every head but the square-jaw. It's dark at the middle too, where the edges of the upper lip meet the line. Press at the corners and lighten along the halves.

3. Draw the upper lip

The top edge of the upper lip rises into the two peaks of the cupid's bow, with a shallow dip between them, and the two lines of the philtrum come down to the peaks. Measure its height from the peaks down to the mouth line: 7 to 11 percent of the space from the nose to the chin on eight heads, and 13 to 14 on the high-cheekbones and full-lips heads. At the middle, under the dip, it's thinner. Where the peaks go, and how far apart, is in the philtrum guide.

4. Make the lower lip the taller one

We measured the lower lip from the mouth line down to the top of the shadow under it, at the middle. On every one of the ten heads it's taller than the upper lip, whether you measure that at the peaks or at the middle. Against the lower lip, the upper lip at the peaks is just over half to about four fifths as tall, about three quarters on a typical head. The minimal head, just over half, and the heavy-brow head, about three fifths, have the thinnest upper lips for their lower ones.

Draw the lower lip mostly with the shadow under it, a short group of dark strokes. Keep any outline light. Across the middle, none of the plates draws a separate edge line above the shadow. On the minimal, full-lips and high-cheekbones heads a light outline runs round the lower lip and ends in the shadow, and on most of the others a faint line curves up from the ends of the shadow toward the corners.

5. Keep the shadow narrow

The shadow under the lower lip is much narrower than the mouth. Counting the dark and medium strokes, the shadow is about a sixth to a little over a third of the mouth's width, about a quarter on a typical head and a little under a third on the square-jaw head. Count only the darkest strokes and it shrinks to between about 4 and 30 percent; add the faintest and it grows to between about a quarter and two fifths. At all three counts it stops well short of the corners. It's widest, about a third of the mouth, on the minimal, full-lips and high-cheekbones heads, and narrowest and lightest on the heavy-brow head.

6. Check the height

Last, compare the whole mouth, from the peaks of the upper lip to the top of the shadow, with the space from the nose to the chin. On seven heads it takes a fifth to a little under a quarter. On the minimal, full-lips and high-cheekbones heads it takes about a third. How to draw full lips compares the full-lips and square-jaw heads on their tonal plates and finds the same split, a third against a quarter; on the pencil plates the square-jaw head comes to a little under a quarter.

Common mistakes

• Drawing the mouth line as a straight stroke, with no notch and no drop to the corners.
• Making the upper lip as tall as the lower one, or taller.
• Outlining the lower lip as darkly as the mouth line, instead of keeping the outline light and letting the shadow under it make the edge.
• Running that shadow out to the corners of the mouth.
• Putting the mouth line halfway between the nose and the chin.

A short exercise

Open the square-jaw head from the front and trace only the base of the nose and the bottom of the chin. Put the mouth line a third of the way down, then draw it with a notch at the middle and the corners just below it. Add the upper lip from its two peaks, about three quarters as tall as the lower lip will be, then make the lower lip with a short group of strokes under it, a quarter to a third as wide as the mouth, and compare your drawing with the plate.

Then try the heavy-brow head, with the thinnest upper lip, and the full-lips head, whose lips take a third of the space from the nose to the chin.

What these numbers don't cover

The heads were read only from the front, and the hard-plane front is seen slightly from below. We read the lower lip to the top of the shadow under it, not to a drawn outline. A smile, an open mouth or teeth change all of this.

The mouth as the head turns is in how to draw the mouth and lips at different angles, the three-quarter view in how to draw lips in three-quarter view, and the profile in how to draw lips from the side. The square-jaw, full-lips and heavy-brow heads are Study Packs 07, 08 and 10, all in Volume 2.

This guide is one step in how to draw the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.