Realistic Self-Portrait

The assignment was to take a photo of ourselves, print it out, and then draw it realistically. When drawing my self portrait I wanted to draw my face as similar to the picture as possible. I want people to see the work and know that it's me.

To make these drawings I used my HB, B, 2B, 4B, 6B, and 8B pencils. I used two different blending tools made out of rolled up paper, as well as erasers to create highlights like in my hair.

My process started out with taking a photo of myself in class and then printing it out. from there I had to draw a 1" x 1'" grid on the photo and then duplicate it onto my final drawing paper. From there I went square by square trying to make what I was drawing as similar to the photo as possible. I would start out by adding in the darkest color and then using the eraser to add in the lighter spots and the highlights. In other places like the mask, background, shirt, and skin I used the blender to add in shading and definition in places it needed. For the first drawing I used different pencils to draw and each time I drew in a square I added more and more shading to make each one slightly darker than the one before.