Realistic Self Portrait

For my self-portrait, I started by getting out graphite and pastel paper. I printed out an image to refer my drawing to and then created a grid on both the image and the pastel paper. Each little square in the grid was one inch by one inch. Starting from the top left corner and working to the right I matched the shades in each box erased each outline of the grid for the smaller boxes as I went. To go from square to square I used a viewfinder to easily match the photo. I tried to push the contrast to create a full range of value. I really enjoy creating this and at the end, I used a tortillon to blend it a get the graphite into the groves of the drawing paper. My favorite part about this is the expression of the face. It's calm but happy and I really enjoyed drawing it.