Me. Myself. And I

Me. Myself. And I 

Materials:  Pencil on cartridge paper

I decided to draw a portrait of myself. To draw this portrait, I used numerous pencils consisting of hard pencils (H and HB) and soft pencils (3B and 6B).  To draw the outline of my face, I used the hard pencils and to shade the inner part of my face, I used a 3B pencil.  To add darker shadows to my hair and face, and details in my eyes, I used a 6B pencil.  Using a stomp, I smudged the darker areas of pencil around my face, to create shadows.

In this portrait, I feel happy and comfortable with who I am.  I cropped a large portion of the photograph, consisting of the top of my head and below my chin.  I decided to draw a close angle of my face because I wanted to capture the expression and emotion that I was feeling at the time, which was happiness.  I also wanted to capture the details in my eyes, as well as the reflection of light bouncing off my eyes, since I believe that the eyes are the "windows to the soul," and are also a feature of myself which I truly love. 

I was inspired to draw this portrait of myself as I came across a photo that was taken by Bert Stern, called "Twiggy." (Photographydo.com)  This photograph shows the emotion and expression on the woman's face as she looks surprised.  This is why I decided to capture the emotion on my face by drawing a portrait at a close angle.  This photograph is also black and white, which is why I decided to use pencil to create shadow in my self portrait.  Also, there is a lot of detail shown in the hair of the woman in the portrait.  Her hair looks shiny and soft and each strand of hair is defined by the contrasting highlights and shadows of the portrait.  Throughout my portrait, I tried to maintain the details of my hair by drawing each strand and adding shadows and highlights.  

This is me.  Love yourself. 

-Yours Truly