How to Draw a Nose - Realistic Graphite Do's and Don'ts

Start with the B pencil and go slowly. The don't version rushes this part. Kirsty's fix is to stop thinking "nose" at all. Look at the reference and copy the shapes you can see: the curve of each wing, the round of the ball, the two soft lines up the bridge.

Keep the lines light. Then mark where the darkest shadows will sit and where the bridge highlight will run, so you know where the pencil never goes. Make this the slowest part of the drawing. If the structure is off, no amount of shading saves it.

Switch to the extra hard charcoal pencil and put down the darkest marks first: the nostrils and the shadow along the underside of the nose. Charcoal gives a flat black with no shine, which is why Kirsty uses it here instead of a soft graphite.

The don't mistake is two dark circles. Draw each nostril as a slim, tapered shape that fades out at the ends. From the front you see very little of the opening; most of what reads as "nostril" is the shadow of the wing curling over it. Taper that shadow off, no hard edge.

Back to the B pencil. Shade every shadow area using small circular motions and almost no pressure, building the tone up in thin layers. The don't version uses long scribbled strokes, and every one of them stays visible after blending. Circles vanish.

Leave the paper bare wherever the highlights will go: down the centre of the bridge, the top of the ball, the top edge of each wing. You are drawing the shadows around the light, not the light itself. Check the reference constantly. Every nose has a different width and length, and the shadows follow it.

Once all the shadows are in with the B, go over the deepest ones again with the 4B: down the sides of the bridge, under the ball, into the creases where the wings meet the face. Same small circles, same light hand. This is the pass where the nose stops looking flat and starts to turn.

Kirsty stops at 4B on purpose. Softer grades put down more graphite than you can blend, and the shine catches every light in the room. A light 4B blends out matte.

Take a clean, dry cotton bud and blend the shading in small circles, working from the darkest areas outward so the graphite fades into the paper. The don't move is to rub it with a fingertip. Skin oil makes the blend patchy and unpredictable, and it leaves grease on the paper that never comes out.

Blending softens the structure, so the nose looks a bit vague at this point. That is fine. This is the base layer. The darks come back in the next step.

Blending lightens everything, so the nostrils and the underside shadow have gone grey. Go back in with the charcoal pencil and bring them back to black. This time blend each patch out with the cotton bud straight away, so the darkest tone melts into the shading next to it instead of sitting on top as a hard edge.

This second pass is where the structure returns. Work small: a bit of charcoal, a bit of blending, then a look at the reference before the next mark.

Keep working around the rest of the nose, adding shadow and blending, until the contrast matches the reference. Save the charcoal for the places that are near black in the photo. Everywhere else use the 4B and the B; charcoal on a mid-tone goes grainy and looks wrong.

There are no outlines on a real face, only shadow and light, so every change of tone should be soft. Ignore the highlights for now and let the shadows do the work. The don't nose took Kirsty five minutes. This one took forty-five, and the difference is all in this step.

Highlights come last. The don't move is one hard swipe with a block eraser down the bridge, which leaves a white stripe. Instead, press and dab a kneaded eraser into the shapes you can see in the reference. It lifts graphite gently, and you can keep pressing the same spot for a brighter mark.

For a wider, softer lift, press clean tissue onto the area first, then dab the strongest highlight on top at the centre of the bridge and the tip of the ball. Once the highlights are in, stop shading. Going over them muddies them.