How to Draw Lips: Light Lower, Shadowed Upper, Dark Line Between

Draw the parting line first

The line where the lips meet is the most important mark in the mouth. It is the darkest value and carries the expression. It is not straight: it dips in the centre under a small bump, rises, and then turns down or up into the corners. Draw this line first, lightly, and check its curve and tilt against your reference before anything else.

The corners are not points. Each one ends in a small shadow where the lips tuck into the cheek, often with a slight bulge of muscle just outside it. Those little shadows decide whether the mouth looks relaxed, smiling or tense.

The upper lip angles down into shadow

The upper lip faces mostly downward. Under typical light from above, it is darker than the lower lip. It has a clear shape: the Cupid’s bow at the top, with two peaks under the groove of the philtrum, and a small rounded bump in the centre, the tubercle, which pushes down into the parting line.

Shade the upper lip as a single darker plane, then lighten slightly along the top edge where the lip rolls toward the light. The ridge where the lip meets the skin above it is a change of plane, so it reads as a change of value, not as a line.

The lower lip catches the light

The lower lip faces upward and outward, so it is the lightest part of the mouth and often carries a highlight. It is usually fuller than the upper lip. Model it like a soft cylinder: light on top, shading toward the parting line and toward its lower edge.

Below the lower lip there is a shadow where it rolls back into the chin. This shadow defines the bottom of the lip far better than an outline. Its size tells you how full the lip is and how much it projects.

Teeth and open mouths

In a smile, treat the teeth as one light shape set back inside the mouth, in shadow near the corners and under the upper lip. Do not draw lines between individual teeth; at most, suggest one or two gaps with a slightly darker tone. Dark separating lines make teeth look like piano keys.

Teeth are not white. In most photos they are a light grey or warm tone, darker than the highlight on the lower lip. Matching them to the paper white makes a smile look harsh.

Check width and placement

Drawing books often place the corners of the mouth roughly below the pupils, or a little inside them, and put the mouth about a third of the way from the base of the nose to the chin. Measure your reference against those starting points. Mouth width and the distance between nose and lip both vary a lot and contribute strongly to likeness.

At the end, step back and look at the mouth with the rest of the face. If it looks pasted on, the usual culprit is edges that are equally sharp all around. Soften the outer edges of the lips into the skin and keep sharpness only along the parting line and the corner shadows.

Questions before you start