Realistic Self-Portrait

Self Portrait

10"x8.5"

The ideas that are visually evident in this piece is myself. We took photos in front of a light and background and printed them off in black and white.

This project obviously relates to my life because it is me! I was a bit nervous to draw myself at first, but then I got over the fact that I would have to stare at myself for over seven hours and went for it!

The work was made with different kinds of graphite pencils from B to 6B and I ended up having to do this in a car while driving to New York and back, so although it was a productive use of my time, it was quite difficult with all the bumps and turns on the way!

Processes I used were editing my original photo of my face to make it have deeper and highlight tones–to create a contrast. Then I used my pencils to create the difference in shades when shading my face to create the shadows that were present in the photo. My project evolved because as I went on drawing the face, I kept making things more proportionate and I tried to shade especially in between the lines of the once visible outlined squares, to blend everything together. My next steps would be making everything darker because I have realized throughout the year, that I have been struggling with not drawing everything light.