Graphite Self Portrait

Artist statement:

My goal when creating this piece was to successfully create a realistic portrait of myself with using only a picture as reference. When I took a picture of myself I made sure to keep in mind to make sure I wasn't doing anything too difficult to copy onto paper, but not to bland that there wouldn't be any sort of challenge. 

When making this, I used an image of myself printed out in black and white on printer paper, blue pastel paper, and a 4H, 2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B, and medium wash charcoal pencil as well as various sizes of tortillons, an eraser, and a ruler.

I started off by printing out an image of myself that I wanted to draw. I gridded the image into 1 inch squares and did the same on my drawing paper. I drew the top row of squares by carefully copying each detail into the same box as the drawing. As I finished up each square I moved on to the next making sure it was as accurate as possible. When all the squares were completed I began to work on other details like the japanese on my hoodie, and the fine strands of hair poking out. After all was done, I wanted to do something with the background so I added medium sized ghosts surrounding my head and used tortillons to add a smokey effect. Overall I like how this turned out.