Realistic Self-Portrait

Artist Statement

My piece is exactly what the title says it is. It is one version of me. When I had first started the project, my family commented on the photograph I had taken, saying “that doesn’t quite look like you.” For me to look at it, I saw myself in it, and that interaction helped create the title for the piece. This relates directly to my life because it is a drawing of me. This is supposed to be based on a photograph, and then after dividing it into 1” grid marks, I was supposed to draw the values that I saw. This assignment and this piece had a lot to do with values. I learned as I did this more about where shadows show up on faces, and especially on my face. I think I actually might have gotten to know myself just a little bit better, as I saw this version of me appear.

Graphite Pencil made up the entirety of this piece. I did use a smudger for most, if not all, of the shadows. I also used the easer quite a bit. I would use darker pencils such as 6B, and 4B, for the areas that needed darker and rougher lines. For example, I found that the hair was a place for the heavier B pencils, and the eyebrows were a place for the lighter, 2B, B, and HB pencils. The eyes were an area that I used Almost every pencil weight. This was so definitely true for the hair because I could use the darker pencils for the areas near to the scalp as they had darker shadows and I could use the lighter pencils, such as that HB pencil, to make the little hair strands closer to the top of the hair that didn't necessarily come from one set direction.

I started this project by choosing a photo reference and then dividing both it and my paper into 1 by 1-inch squares. I started at the top left area and worked my way across the top of the hair and then down the left more. I finished the left eye first and then I moved on to getting the chin and shirt/neck area in place. My next step was the nose and in the mouth which was finally followed by the right eye. These are just the major pieces that I focused on. My next step would be adding more shading around the right eye. I would also revisit the lips and grid them up further to try and focus on the shadow and not the entire piece. That was one of the challenges that I found while making this piece. Trying to simply focus on one area as seen by its values and not as a whole piece. I also might just make the shading darker in general over the whole piece. Finally, I might want to add some color to the background. I was toying with the idea of using Yellow Ochre Oil pastel And doing something with that in the background but I was not quite sure what to do.