My Best Portrait

One thing that has been a goal of mine for a long time is to figure out how to draw good portraits. It's something that I have seen come so easy for many art students, but I have never been good at it. Proportions are hard and overwhelming to me and I just never place anything in the right spot.

That's why I love grids.

I know many artists hate grids. They don't want to deal with them. I get that. I understand that a lot of artists don't like how restrictive they are. But from someone who needs some sort of reference in almost every piece, grids help me to figure out the proportions for my subject.

The grid for this art project last year in one of my studio classes was required. I think our teacher just wanted to teach us how we do them. I already knew (not trying to toot my own horn or anything), but I already had kind of figured out how to use one in a past class. Unlike one of my past projects, for this, I decided to just draw in the contour of my subject and shade in values after I erased the grid.

I am so proud of myself for this project. No joke, I hate everything I make, but this is the one thing that I will pat myself on the back for. I just never expected that I could do this myself.

We weren't allowed to choose our subject for this piece. My teacher made us draw a number out of a hat and that number was linked to a name on the roster. I honestly don't know this girls name, but I was happy that she's African American because I can really play with highlights and shadows. I'm always intimidated to use a lot of dark colors (10's on the value scale to be exact) because once you apply them there is no going back. It's permanent. Since I'm so used to drawing my insanely pale Caucasian self, I usually never use anything above an 8 on the value scale, and when I use an 8 it's usually in really deep shadows in my hair, which mainly depends on the lighting.

This project was also fun because my teacher caught us in really embarrassing candid shots. My person had taped funnily drawn eyes onto her glasses so I was saved from having to make the eyes realistic (woohoo!).

Some of the areas where I used the pencil aren't very blended, but yah know it happens. The paper got a bit messed up because I was working so hard on it for so long and the paper is just so thin it easily tore and folded.

What do ya'll think? I'd love to know in the comment