How To Draw Realistic Lips In 7 Simple Steps

Drawing portraits is fun and fulfilling, but it can also be challenging. If you want to improve, the best place to start is by practicing sketching features of the face. There are two common mistakes people make when learning how to draw lips. I’ll show you how to avoid these mistakes and draw lips that look lifelike. This tutorial will show you how to draw realistic-looking lips in seven simple steps. 

Materials you’ll need:

• Pencil for light sketching (2H grade)
• Pencil for shading (2B grade)
• Eraser
• Drawing paper

Step 1: Decide the length and height of your drawing

Start with a 2H pencil and sketch a rectangle to show the length and height of the top and bottom lip. If you are drawing from a photograph, look at how long the mouth is and how high the mouth is. This step is just to get some simple guidelines down on the page, and then we can start putting in the actual shapes.

Step 2: Sketch the simple shapes of the lips

To draw the shape of the lips, lightly sketch in three shapes for the top lip and two for the bottom lip. Draw the heart shape in the middle of the top lip. It will come down slightly lower than the centerline. These shapes show the underlying form of the lips. (Take a look at your own lips and see if you can find the five shapes!)

Step 3: Draw the important angles of the lips

Many assume lips are only made up of curved lines, which is the first common mistake people make when trying to draw a realistic mouth. In fact, some critical angles show the expression of the mouth. The key to capturing the expression of the lips is to look at the centerline between them. Six angles usually make up the centerline, which follows the shapes of the top lip. The way the angles slant up or down will show if the expression is smiling, neutral, or frowning. 

Draw six angles for the centerline. Now we have a map for the rest of the drawing. Before we start shading, lightly sketch the outline of the lips and erase any lines you no longer need.