Make Pencil Portraits for 30 Years?How About That?

A portrait drawing in progress shows how wide-ranging Mau-Kun Yim develops the midtone. It makes up a lot of real estate in pencil portraits.

Leaving China for Hong Kong after winning a major painting competition that could have set his career skyrocketing, Mau-Kun Yim instead left his mother country with only the clothes on his back. He eventually became a lauded teacher of drawing in Hong Kong and his decades of pencil portraits are sure to astound you as they did me. But it isn?t just his work that it is provocative. It is also his teachings. Here are a few of Mau-Kun Yim?s tips on pencil portraits that you can use right now to make significant improvements in your art.

-Use a B pencil to define the boundaries and outline the head. Switch to a 3B or 4B pencil to add…