Tutored Life Drawing Blog Week 34: Body Hair (Patreon)

Body hair is highly variable, depending on the individual, and the part of the body it is located on. Though body hair doesn't contribute to the bulk of the body's mass, and is very much a surface feature, it does affect observations by changing the textures and tones of the surface of the figure..

The marks you make and how you make them are especially important when drawing body hair. The growth patterns and textures of different types of hair can be described by marks that match them, or other qualities of hair can be used to differentiate it from skin, such as its softness or colour.

This lesson will introduce some common observed features of body hair, and suggest some different approaches to drawing it and better describing its textures.

Image above: Louis

Observational Features of Body Hair

Body hair usually refers to terminal, or androgenic hair, rather than the vellus hair that covers most of the body in small, fine hairs. This is especially true when drawing the figure, as terminal hair is more visible as it is darker and thicker than vellus hair. The presence of body hair differs immensely between individuals for various reasons, and may or may not be present in different areas of the body for different people - it can range from being widespread on the body to there being very little hair. This is due to a combination of genetics, androgenic hormones, and grooming.

Body hair may be found (in rough order of frequency) in the pubic region, the armpits, on the legs, arms, abdomen, buttocks, chest and lower back – though it is not limited to these regions, and may appear in other places such as the toes, or extend to cover more of the back and shoulders. Facial hair is similar to body hair, though it can grow longer – see this earlier blog post.

Pubic hair, armpit hair and leg hair are nearly always present (unless removed). Arm hair and abdominal hair are common too. Other areas of the body are more dependant on genetics and hormones, and will vary from person to person. Body hair varies in amount as well – for example, chest hairs may only show up as a few hairs around the nipples, or be a much more widespread, denser covering.

Body hair placement on the body – darker areas are places where body hair is most frequently found.

There is a growth pattern or direction to body hair. This is quite variable between individuals, or may be confused by curly hair, so be observant. Typically there will be a dominant 'direction' hair grows in, that creates rhythms on the surface of the body.

Some of these directions are common to most people – for instance, leg hair typically grows downwards, whilst arm hair is more likely to wrap around the arm, especially the lower arm. In other areas, there might be a variety of different hair growth patterns, or more disorganised growth. However, there is often an underlying 'structure' or rhythm to hair growth.

An approximate map of the direction body hair grows in over the body.

The directions pubic hair grows in can also appear quite chaotic as the hair can be more dense than other areas of body hair, but there is often underlying consistency. Often the hair direction points in towards the genitals, with a slight downwards tilt, and each side meets in the middle. This may vary, or be less clear when hair is very curly or tightly coiled.

Armpit hair often has a 'parting' through the middle, with the hair diverting from it.

There are many different ways people groom body hair. It may be trimmed, partially removed, or entirely removed, and this may differ between areas of the body. Where hair is removed, sometimes the skin tone is slightly 'bluer' – this easiest to spot with shaved facial hair, when the hair is darker and coarser.

Examples of different hair types in pubic hair.

The texture of body hair can vary both due to genetics and its place on the body. Body hair can be straight, curly, frizzy or tightly curled in any area of the body. Some areas of the body will have different textures to others – for instance, leg hair is more often straight than other areas of the body. It is important to be mindful of texture when drawing body hair, as it is not always the seem for everyone. For instance, pubic hair and armpit hair can range from being quite straight to tightly curled.

Pubic hair might be groomed in a variety of ways, from trimming to shorten or shape it, to complete removal.

Other things that affect the apparent texture of body hair is the thickness of the individual hairs, and the density of hair. Thicker hairs tend to appear darker and firmer, whilst finer hairs, such as leg hair, may have a softer appearance.

Examples of finer leg hair and thicker chest hair. Note that in these specific examples, the leg hair is straighter and paler, whilst the chest hair is more curled and thicker.

Drawing Body Hair

The biggest tool to help with drawing body hair is mark-making. Body hair often has textural properties which can best be described with a varied language of marks. Lots of things go into the marks made in a drawing. When looking at body hair specifically, direction, line weight, and line quality are worth thinking about.

The direction of marks making up body hair should help indicate the growth direction, or the direction that the hair is sitting on the surface of the skin. This can be done both with broad tonal strokes or finer marks that accumulate to indicate the direction the hair grows in. 

Line weight is also an important factor. Lighter line weights indicate thinner, softer hair, whilst thicker lines indicate thicker hair. It is likely that there are far too many individual hairs to render each individual strand, so the line weight used is more of an idea that indicates the texture of the hair.

The direction of the marks making up the hair on this forearm runs around the limb, twisting down towards the elbow further up the arm.

Line quality is a less linear property that encompasses the 'feeling' of the lines used in drawing. When looking at a line, it is possible to tell whether it was drawn quickly or slowly, with a push or a pull, and any number of other characteristics. Body hair is diffuse and wispy in nature compared to the firmness of muscle, or the soft bulk of fat and skin. How can the line quality portray this?

Building up and layering marks is one way to describe texture, but a few other things can help convey it better as well. Texture is easiest to see at the edges of a region of hair. This could be at the boundary of the skin, where an area of body hair peters out into bare skin, or at the edge of the body's contours, where it is possible to see hair side-on sticking up from the surface of the skin.

A few examples of different ways marks can be used to cultivate variety when portraying body hair in a drawing.

These boundaries are especially important for conveying texture – this can allow much of the central mass of hair to be left quite simple if so desired.

Because areas of body hair are made from a multitude of strands, simplification is necessary. The first big step to this is to look for tonal shapes. Even diffuse body hair, such as leg hair, will slightly darken skin tones when viewed at a distance significant enough to lose sight of most individual hairs. Tonal edges are also helpful in indicating the presence of body hair when individual hairs cannot be made out. Body hair will have softer tonal edges than the contours of bare skin. The softer the edge, the longer and more diffuse the 'fall off' of hair appears to be – this might imply longer, wispier strands, such as armpit hair, or a gradual decline in density, such as the edge of chest hair transitioning to bare skin.

Here the boundaries at the contour of the body (blue) show the shape of individual hairs edge on, whilst the transitional areas (green) show more of the growth direction. These qualities are harder to make out in more densely hairy areas.

Application in Artworks – Drawing Body Hair

Art history intertwines with societal attitudes revolving around the role of body hair in artworks across time and different cultures. This is a significant topic that cannot be covered in the scope of this lesson. Through much of art history, both in European art and a number of other cultures, figures – especially those presented as female – are not depicted with body hair, or with reduced and abstracted body hair. This is not universal, with Japanese prints and Indian manuscripts being a couple of notable examples.

In Western art, body hair slowly began to appear in the 18th and 19th centuries as it was included in more naturalistic depictions of the figure. This started with more ambiguous indications of hair, such minimal indications or hiding it in shadows, before becoming more descriptive. As this article is focused on drawing, the below examples are focused on practical approaches.

In this quick sketch, the body hair has been included with some fairly minimal indicative marks. To separate it from the skin tones, it is rendered in black chalk as opposed to red. The choice of marks is interesting here – on the chest, curled marks indicate the direction of the hair and its density, with a clear indication of the thicker patch at the top of the chest and two sparser areas around the nipples. The abdominal and pubic hair is more loosely indicated. Though this shows less of the surface forms and the behaviour of the hair itself, it is still helps imply the underlying centreline, and adds some tonal variation.

Antoine Watteau  - Study of a Nude Man Holding Bottles (Source: The New York MET)

This is an academic study, but it offers an example of body hair in a more tightly rendered, but naturalistic drawing.

The density of hair appears to be built up by layering marks on top of a tonal base of charcoal. The marks used to indicate hair are sympathetic to the growth direction, flowing inwards to meet at an invisible centreline. Soft tonal edges help to imply the fall off of hair density to the surrounding skin.

Otto H. Bacher -Standing Female Nude (Source: Cleveland Museum of Art)

Key Points to Remember About Drawing Body Hair

• Body hair varies widely depending on many factors, but tends to follow predictable growth patterns and distribution where it is present.
• Mark-making is an important part of drawing body hair – try to be mindful of the direction, speed and pressure of your marks.
• Try to simplify body hair – it is often impossible to draw every strand, so try to capture ideas about texture, tone or direction.

Over to You – Drawing Body Hair

Recommended Materials: Any drawing media, something with two or more colours (pencil crayons, conté, pens etc.)

Further Reading: Lesson 2 – Contour, Lesson 16 – Form, Portrait Drawing: Facial Hair 

Exercise 1: Texture Study

This is a useful warm up exercise to tune into the textures of body hair and the growth directions it has. In this exercise, ignore the rest of the body and focus on only drawing the hair. Don't worry too much about the placement and proportions for now.

Pay close attention to the marks you are making in this exercise – it is easy to fall into the habit of scribbling body hair onto the figure rather than incorporating the form, texture and direction of the hair. Is the hair straight or curled? Dense or sparse? Is it wrapping around the form to become the leading edge?

Warm up sketch of body hair from a torso.

Exercise 2 – Two Colour Drawing

Sometimes it can be a challenge to differentiate the marks that make up body hair from those that describe the forms of the figure. One way to do this is by rendering body hair in a different colour to the rest of the figure. For this exercise, you can use brighter colours (perhaps to achieve better contrast) or more traditional ones, such as red conté and black chalk (such as in the Watteau example above). Draw skin in one colour, and body hair in the other.

Think about how the body hair marks differ from those of the cross contour lines that denote form. How do they show texture directly? Does the rhythm and growth pattern of body hair imply form as well?

 In this sketch, I used green for everything except the body hair, including the hair on the head.

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Further links

>> Watch the Week 34: Body Hair main lesson HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Watch the Week 34: Body Hair demo HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Practice your drawings with our photo set HERE (Student & Life Tiers)

Find links to the whole Tutored Life Drawing Course HERE