Your Turn: Capture a 3/4 View with Graphite Artist Margo Wallace

There's something about a face in 3/4 view. There's a mystery in the slight turn of the head that makes you wonder. What's caught his eye? What's she pondering?

This alluring angle pulls the viewer in, making it one of the most engaging perspectives to draw. It also comes with its challenges: shifting proportions, foreshortened features, and—perhaps trickiest of all—glasses bending and reflecting at an angle.

In this lesson (77 mins), artist Margo Wallace helps you embrace the intrigue of the 3/4 view while tackling its technical challenges with confidence.

Margo is an extraordinary graphite artist who teaches art professionally in Indianapolis. "I have stuck with graphite," she says, "for the sheer fact that it hides nothing. When working with pencil, you must be ever present, and I quite enjoy the amount of thought drawing with graphite requires."

In this lesson, you’ll explore how to sketch strong foundational shapes, use hatching and cross-hatching to build depth, and incorporate skin texture, facial hair, and glasses that sit naturally on the face.

Ready for your turn? Let's get started!