In this expression drawing lesson, you’re going to learn how to draw a laughing face.
You can see what your final drawing is going to look like above.
How to Draw a Laughing Face: Drawing the Eyebrows in a Raised and Relaxed Pose
The first step in learning how to draw a laughing face is to raise up the eyebrows. If you try to create a laughing expression with your own face in the mirror, notice how your eyebrows rise up.
In some cases they can also move down, and this usually happens with extreme laughter.
Drawing the Eyes and Nose
As the corners of the mouth move up to form the laughing expression the cheeks are also going to move up and make the eyes close somewhat. In this particular expression the eyes have been drawn completely closed.
It’s up to you how you would like to draw the eyes, but remember that when we are laughing our eyes naturally narrow.
When you’re learning how to draw a laughing face, note that the nose is also going to be affected by the expression.
It should be placed slightly higher, and if you are going for a realistic look you can also widen the nose slightly because as the mouth widens it’s also going to pull on the sides of the nose outward.
Drawing the Laughing Mouth
In this image you can see that the mouth has been drawn in. The upper lip is going to rise up and stretch out to the sides. This will reveal the upper teeth and cause the creases on the sides of the nose to appear.
The jaw is going to open, so you will need to draw in the chin a little lower than in the neutral pose seen in the beginning of this video.
Another little thing added in this image is that you can see a small crease just below the closed eyes. Drawing in this line shows the crease that becomes more visible right at the bottom of the lower eyelid, or eye bag, as the cheeks push upward.
Finish Drawing the Laughing Expression
To finish this drawing you can draw in the upper and lower rows of teeth. Remember from the previous lesson about how to draw an opened jaw that the upper row of teeth never actually moves because it’s fixed to the skull.
Draw in some shading on the sides and back of the mouth and indicate the tongue and shade it in with a lighter tone.
The last bit of shading that you can add to this expression is along the corners of the mouth to really show that this is a wide and natural smile.
Do you feel like you’re getting the hang of how to modify these expressions yet?
We hope you enjoyed learning how to draw a laughing face. In the next lesson you will learn how to draw the surprised expression.
Go to the How to Draw Expressions Video Course
could you try to make your sketch more realistic