Realistic Self - Portrait. 

Artist Statement. 

The main idea behind this artwork was to match highlights and lowlights with graphite. The different shades of graphite were supposed to be used, along with the grinding technique, to understand where the colors were on our faces, and how to match them. This idea aims to draw realistically and create a portrait that looks like you, and the photo you took of yourself. It strengthened our realistic drawing techniques and improved our knowledge of it. 

 I used many shades of graphite pencils, a tortillon, and an eraser on drawing paper to create this piece. 

The first step in this process was to take a photo in front of a white surface. Then, I desaturated the photo and played with the highlights and lowlights until I liked it and could still see all the information.  After printing it out, I gridded the photo into one-inch squares, considering what kind of border I needed. The grinding technique is helpful for proportions, and helped  my art look more realistic as I worked in small "Puzzle pieces." It definitely made the drawing much less intimidating. After gridding,  I was able to start drawing square by square. I crossed off squares that had no information, just the white background. Then I began drawing from the top squares, downward, to avoid future smudging of graphite. Throughout the whole process,  I kept my photo directly under wherever I was drawing to ensure I could match it straight on. I also used a piece of scrap paper so the oil from my hands would not get on the paper, which h makes it shiny and affects the coloring. l alternated between 2H, 4H, HB, 4B, and 6B pencils because the different darkness allows highlights and lowlights to be drawn. The tortillon was extremely helpful and heavily used to blend the pencil. This leads to an even look and helps blend together the contrasts or highlights to be smoothed out. After every grid was filled in and erased, I went through with the tortillon one last time to ensure everything was blended nicely.