History

Draw a Vermeer girl by following my formula!

This drawing is a modern version of the painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer. Here, the earring is not the center of the attention, but a heart and flowers steal the show. I have made a simple formula to draw and color the girl’s face, and then you can put your own twist on the head and add whatever decorations you want there.

Supplies

You can use colored pencils, watercolor pencils, watercolors, acrylic paints, oil paints – or any medium that has a possibility to create color mixes. My example uses colored pencils. For the face, you need three browns: one dark, one middle, and one very light brown. You also need a little bit red for the lips and black for some small details. White is optional. When working on white or almost white background, you can just leave the white areas uncolored as I do in my example. I do use a little bit white to blend the red of the lips into paper white.

I created my Vermeer girl directly on an art journal page. My art journal is Dylusions Creative Journal Square. Pick a journal or a paper that works well with your supplies.

Vermeer Girl – Shape by Shape Formula

To succeed you have to trust this formula. Don’t look at the original painting, follow the picture below only. Copy the shapes as accurately as you can, and don’t think about drawing a face. The girl will appear when you have all the puzzle pieces in place!

Start from the first picture and color the shapes so that they have sharp outline edges. Then blend the skin colors so that the transition from one shape to another is softer.

Starting the Drawing

If you want to put all kinds of fun stuff on the girl’s head, place the face on the left bottom corner. I marked the spot where I started the drawing with a green arrow on the photo below.

At first, the face doesn’t look like one at all. But this kind of abstraction will bring out the realistic look. Reality is always more abstract than we think.

Drawing Sharp Shapes

Human faces are very organic, so the shapes are too. Examine the curves of the formula in detail, and avoid straight lines. The more beginner you are, the more you are tempted to draw too straight, avoid that!

Once all the pieces are in place, the face makes sense. Take the image in front of the mirror to see if there are any distortions. If the mirror image looks wrong in some way, get back to the formula and check your shapes!

When you are satisfied with the sharp shapes, go to the second step of the formula: blending.

Vermeer Girl – Achieving the Old World Look

Old paintings have softness that our photo-oriented era doesn’t often express. We prefer sharpness over blurry. However, life is often blurry and your Vermeer Girl will look much more alive if you soften the edges of shapes, especially on the skin.

Color on the top of the shape with the neighbor color so that the shapes integrate and look less separate. Now you can also adjust the shapes a bit more freely. I lengthened the big dark brown shadow because my face became a bit longer than in the formula.

Small changes in faces can change the personality quite a lot. I think that’s fascinating! You can start from the Vermeer girl, but then end up with a character of your own.

Drawing Decorations

First, think about the size of the decorations: do you want plenty of small ones or only a few large ones. Beginners easily draw something between, but I think this portrait will look better if the decorations are either a bunch of small ones or a few large ones. I chose the latter and placed a couple of big flowers and a heart on her head.

I colored the decorations freely and used no references for these. I like the contrast between the face’s carefully constructed softness and the free coloring of the flowers.

I move on to color the background just before I am finished with decorations. This way I can still change them a bit if needed. The background often gives life to the whole image and brings in more ideas for the drawing.

Starting the Background

Not only the girl’s face is composed of shapes, the background can be like that too. The only difference is that now you can freely improvise the shapes. Start with one color and sketch by coloring!

Think about the streams of air and imagine how the girl moves when she is posing in front of you.

Building the Color Scheme

To make the portrait look unified, you need to repeat the colors. My background started as blue, but in the picture below, it has started to get more brown tones. The pinks of the flowers also blend into blue. Color several layers and use a lot of blending near the edges.

I added the surrounding colors to the center of the heart like it would be a mirror. This also helps in harmonizing the atmosphere.

You can also play with patterns: color small shapes inside a bigger one! When located in the background, the patterns can be subtle and muted, so that they don’t steal the whole show.

Finishing the Vermeer Girl

When you are close to finishing, look at the original Vermeer painting and see how she partly disappears in the background. Especially the dark brown in the neck area can be blended with the background.

Dark background looks great with the lit face. Vermeer girl with a heart makes a wonderful Valentine’s day page in any art journal!

I hope this project made you grab your pencils and other art supplies!

Hearts and Stories – Sign up Now!

Come to play with hearts and other simple shapes! We use colored pencils, felt-tipped pens, and watercolors. Sign up for Hearts and Stories!