Self Portrait

For this art project we were instructed to take a photo, or chose a photo that had been taken of yourself. For this project I picked my picture with two people in it, my aunt and I. For this project the materials we were instructed to use were charcoal and graphite. This project was all about making your self portrait look realistic. To do this, shading is very important because it adds volume to your drawing to make certain facial features stand out. For example, cheek bones and noses are just two of the many facial features that do not need to be drawn, but created by using shading. Personally, self portraits have always been challenging for me. For this specific project, the piece I struggled with the most was the mouths. I struggled with getting the correct shape of my mouth, as well as the teeth to get them to look realistic. To solve a little bit of this problem I shaded the shadows on my lips, this helped with the realism factor. During this project I am confident to say that I have gotten really good at blending and layering with charcoal. Another thing I have learned from this project is not to draw hair in strands. If you want the hair to look realistic it's all about drawing it in the direction it grows and focusing on the shape, and small details like high lights. Overall, I guess I am kind of proud of this project because myself and my aunt look somewhat realistic and I used a little of my own creative voice my coloring in the sunglasses with color and shapes. If I were to change one thing about this project, I would touch up the shading around my chin and mouth.