Traditional-Drawing Tutorial: How To Draw The Letterman By Normal Rockwell

Norman Rockwell was a famous illustrator, many of his art work appeared on covers of magazines. You can read a bit about him here and see some of his work here.

The image we will be drawing is called 'Letterman'. It appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on November 19, 1938. This tutorial provides drawing practice for various shading techniques, good visual skills and proportion judgment. Level of this tutorial would be placed at medium to expert. You can view the original painting on the net, although this original tutorial was made
before computers were used and adapted for the internet.
(The link to show his images were not used for the drawings, it is just to show his paintings.)

Note: Making a drawing tutorial can be very hard and time consuming, it's impossible to scan every line you draw in and to explain every pencil stroke you make. It is mainly visual and the person doing the tutorial needs to study each accompanying image very carefully. It's not like making a photoshop tutorial, we can't give exact step by step, nor can we promise your finished image will be identical to the one in the tutorial. We all have our own style of drawing and it impacts our results in our finished image.

End result:
How To Draw The Letterman By Normal Rockwell Final Image

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Practice tutorial

Tags:lettermannormanrockwell

Step 1

Materials:
4B graphite Pencil
Kneaded Eraser
Paper
Compass

Print out the finished drawing to use as your guide, you will need it to help you in placement at various steps. Make a rough draft of where your people will be placed in the drawing

Step 2

Roughly draw in the outline of the hair and clothes, this will be our guide.

Step 3

Using a light table or other light source, place a clean sheet of
paper over the guide we just made and draw in the head of the male, study the larger drawing for guidance.

Step 4

Now draw in his hair and his facial features, some shading on his neck.

Step 5

Draw in the outline of his shoulder, chest and her hand. Note, not to happy with her hand, will adjust it later in the tutorial.

Step 6

Now we are going to add his right arm and do some detail it, look at larger image to help you.

Step 7

Now we draw in the letter on front of his sweater and her her left hand, use larger image to guide you.

Step 8

Fill in the letter on his sweater and add detail to her hand.

Step 9

Draw in her arm, outline of her face and start detailing her hair, larger image will guide you.

Step 10

Finish detail to hair, add in facial features and blouse collar. Use image on right to guide you.

Step 11

Draw in the back of her blouse, the shading to right arm and outline of left arm, larger image will guide you.

Step 12

Add detail to left arm and shoulder, image on right will guide you.

Step 13

Going back to the male, we draw in the bottom of his sweater, add detail and draw in the parts and shading to his lower part of his football uniform. Larger image will guide you.

Step 14

Draw in his hand, hips and legs, adding detail and shading as you go. Larger image will guide you.

Note: I want to make you stretch yourself on this tut, so some steps require more drawing in some then others. I want you to learn to study what you are actually seeing and reproduce it without me directing your every pencil stroke.

Step 15

Finish adding detail to his his hips and upper legs, larger image will guide you.

Step 16

We start drawing parts of the helmet and his cleats, follow image on right to guide you.

Step 17

We draw in his cleats, adding detail as we draw. Image on right will guide you.

Step 18

Time to finish drawing the outline of his helmet, use image on right to guide you.

Step 19

Add detail and shading to the helmet, use image on right to guide you.
Note: While you may find it boring to replicate this drawing, its a good way to keep in practice for shading, proportion and really studying what you are seeing.

Step 20

Draw in the top of her skirt and bottom of her sweater, larger image will guide you.

Step 21

Add detail to bottom of her sweater and where her rear will be. Image on right will guide you.

Step 22

Going to the front of her skirt, the part closest to him. Start drawing shading to her skirt. Larger image will show you where.
Note: You are not required to use the same shading style I am using, feel free to experiment a little if you wish.

Step 23

Keep detailing her skirt, adding the shading. Larger image will guide you.

Step 24

Still adding detail to the skirt.

Step 25

Now we need to draw in the box she is setting on, just the outline for now. Image on right will guide you.

Step 26

Finish up the detail on her skirt, with the box in place, it helps us find how the material should flow. Larger image on right will guide you.

Step 27

Draw in the outline of her legs and shoes, image on right will guide you.

Step 28

Do shading and detail to her legs and shoes, use closeup to guide you.

Step 29

Start adding texture, shading and detail to the lid and front of the box. Use closeup to guide you.

Step 30

Draw in outline of her megaphone and finish shading the box she is setting on, use image on right to guide you.

Step 31

Start drawing in the little pouch and sewing supplies at her feet, image on right will guide you.

Step 32

Added shading and detail to the sewing pouch and supplies, using close up to guide you.

Step 33

Add shading and detail to the megaphone, shading in the letters. Image on right will guide you.

Step 34

Add circle at the top around their heads, image on right will guide you.

Step 35

Okay, time to check your drawing, adjust some places you are not happy with, darken or lighten lines, thin or thicken them. I did redo her right hand, but still not that happy with it. One you are happy with your image, you are done. Well done you! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and thank you for taking the time to read it. Have a great day.

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