Realistic Self Portrait

Artist Statement:

For my segmented value strip, I had to create a value strip with graphite pencils that went from dark to light. Rather than doing something plain like a rectangle, I decided to make it a little more entertaining. Thus, it became an ostrich. For the self-portrait, I had to choose a photo reference with good lighting, but a fair amount of contrast. I wanted mine to have a neutral expression on my face, so I came up with the photo you see above.

For both pieces, I drew on pastel paper. I also used many different graphite pencils on each. In both, I believe I used 6B, 2B, HB, and 2H graphite pencils.

For my segmented value strip, I outlined the shape of an ostrich and split it into eleven different segments. Then, I shaded each segment with a slightly different value, slowly getting lighter as I made my way up the paper. For the self-portrait, I found an acceptable photo reference and printed it out. Then, I gridded the picture into 1-inch sections. After that, I took a piece of pastel paper and gridded that too, making sure it was to scale with my printed paper. After that was done, I used a viewfinder to replicate what I saw in the picture onto the pastel paper.