Coloring Hair

Don't Draw Every Hair

Hair looks as though it contains thousands of individual strands because, of course, it does.

Fortunately, you don't need to color them all.

When we look at hair, we usually see larger shapes first—locks, curls, waves, masses of light and shadow—and individual strands second.

If you begin by drawing hundreds of separate lines from scalp to tip, hair can quickly become stiff, stringy, or resemble a bowl of extremely organized spaghetti.

Instead, begin with the overall shape of the hairstyle.

Then divide that shape into larger sections.

The individual hairs come much later.

Find the Flow

Before coloring, look at where the hair begins and where it's going.

Hair grows from the scalp, but gravity, curls, braids, styling, and movement change its direction.

Trace the major flow with your eyes:

Where is the part?

Where does the hair curve around the head?

Where does it tuck behind an ear?

Where do waves change direction?

Where do curls turn back on themselves?

Where does long hair fall over a shoulder?

Your pencil strokes should follow those paths.

If the hair curves, your strokes curve.

Try It: The Ribbon Exercise

Before coloring actual hair, draw three long ribbon-like shapes.

Make one straight.

Make one wavy.

Make one curl into an S-shape.

Now fill each ribbon with long directional pencil strokes following its movement from beginning to end.

Leave a lighter band where the ribbon curves toward your imaginary light source and deepen the areas where it turns away.

Don't draw individual hairs.

Just create flowing bands of color.

If the ribbons begin looking dimensional, you've learned one of the most important principles of coloring hair.

Work in Locks, Not Strands

Divide the hairstyle mentally into larger sections.

For long straight hair, those might be broad flowing locks.

For curly hair, think in groups of curls.

For short hair, look for sections created by the direction of growth and the shape of the head.

For a braid, each overlapping piece becomes its own form.

Color those larger shapes first.

Establish their lights and shadows.

Then add selected strands over them.

This gives the hair structure underneath the detail.

Hair Needs a Dark Foundation

One common mistake is creating nothing but individual lines on white paper.

Even blonde hair has darker areas beneath and between the illuminated strands.

Begin with a light base appropriate to the hair color, leaving the strongest highlights untouched or barely colored.

Then establish the deeper areas:

• beneath overlapping locks,

• near the roots,

• behind the neck,

• under bangs,

• inside curls,

• beneath braids,

• and wherever the hair turns away from the light.

Those darker masses create depth.

Then your lighter strands have something to sit on top of.

Blonde Hair Isn't Yellow

A bright yellow pencil used everywhere can produce hair that looks more like a plastic wig than blonde hair.

Natural blonde hair may contain:

• cream,

• pale gold,

• ochre,

• light brown,

• peach,

• beige,

• gray,

• and even pale violet or blue in cool shadows.

Use yellow selectively.

Build the darker areas with muted golds, browns, or cool neutrals depending on the lighting.

Preserve cream and the white of the paper for the brightest strands.

Suddenly “yellow hair” becomes blonde hair.

Brown Hair Isn't Just Brown

Brown hair is wonderfully forgiving because it can contain so many colors.

Warm brown hair might include gold, ochre, burnt orange, red-brown, burgundy, and deep chocolate.

Cool brown might include taupe, gray-brown, violet, indigo, and charcoal.

Instead of using one light brown, one medium brown, and one dark brown, introduce subtle color variation.

A few unexpected hues can make the finished hair feel much richer.

Black Hair Needs Light

Just as we discovered with black objects, don't begin by filling black hair completely with black.

Build it with deep colors such as indigo, violet, dark brown, charcoal, burgundy, or blue-gray.

Preserve bands of lighter reflected color where the hair catches light.

Then use true black selectively in the deepest areas.

The hair will still read as black—but the curls, waves, and shape of the head won't disappear.

Red Hair Contains a Whole Autumn Palette

Red hair can range from pale strawberry blonde through copper, auburn, rust, mahogany, and deep red-brown.

Try layering combinations of:

cream,

gold,

ochre,

orange,

terracotta,

red,

burgundy,

and brown.

For natural-looking red hair, don't make every strand equally orange.

Let some areas become golden, others coppery, and the deepest shadows move toward brown, burgundy, or even muted violet.

Red hair is practically an excuse to empty the autumn section of your pencil box onto the table.

Use this power responsibly.

Gray and White Hair Still Need Shadows

White hair isn't simply untouched paper, and gray hair isn't one flat gray.

White and silver hair can contain:

• pale blue,

• lavender,

• cool gray,

• warm gray,

• cream,

• reflected environmental colors,

• and deep charcoal in the strongest shadows.

Preserve the brightest strands as white paper or very pale color.

Then use shadows to establish the locks and shape.

The contrast between dark interior areas and bright strands can make silver hair especially striking.

Creating the Highlight Band

Hair often reflects light across groups of strands, creating a band of brightness rather than hundreds of unrelated highlights.

Imagine long brown hair curving over a shoulder.

The brightest area may form a broad band across the curve.

Instead of drawing white lines down the entire length of the hair, allow your strokes to become lighter as they enter that band and darker as they leave it.

The highlight should follow the shape of the hairstyle, not interrupt it.

This is one of the easiest ways to make hair look shiny.

Mini Challenge: One Lock of Hair

Draw one large curved lock—almost like a ribbon.

Choose three to five related colors.

Create:

• a darker root,

• a medium-value body,

• a broad highlight band,

• deeper shadow where the lock curves away,

• and a few individual strands at the end.

Use long strokes that travel the full direction of the lock whenever possible.

If one simple lock looks convincing, an entire hairstyle is really just a collection of those forms interacting with one another.

Much less terrifying.

Curly Hair Needs Depth Between the Curls

Don't outline every curl like a collection of little tubes.

Begin with the overall mass of hair.

Establish deep shadow areas between groups of curls.

Then bring individual curls forward with lighter curved strokes.

The darkest spaces between them create separation.

Think of curls as overlapping three-dimensional ribbons and coils, not spiral symbols drawn on top of the head.

And vary them.

Perfectly identical curls tend to look manufactured.

Real hair has opinions.

Braids Are Overlapping Forms

A braid becomes much easier when you stop thinking, How on earth do I color all of that?

Treat each woven section as a separate overlapping form.

Where one section passes beneath another, deepen the shadow.

Where it bulges outward toward the light, make it lighter.

Then add directional hair strokes following each individual section.

Those alternating overlaps create the braid automatically.

A Few Loose Strands Add Life

Once the hairstyle is essentially finished, add a small number of fine strands.

A few can cross a highlight.

Some can escape from a bun.

One or two might fall across the face.

Fine wisps can soften the outer silhouette.

These irregular strands make the hair feel natural and lived-in.

But don't add them everywhere.

A few loose hairs say natural.

Seven hundred say someone has encountered a significant electrical event.

Edenglow Studio Tip

Color the hairstyle first and the individual hairs last.

Think in masses → locks → light and shadow → directional strokes → selected strands.

The larger forms create the hair.

The tiny strands merely convince us.