Evaluation of my skills in drawing my self-portrait

During the process of creating the self-portrait, I think that I learnt a lot and I could still improve more. I think that I was good at understanding what I should do, knowing what way the lines were going and I think that my eyes turned out how I wanted them. I think the eyes turned out well as I think I knew how to blend into another shade. I don’t think my shading was very good as it was a bit too dark, and you could see all the lines. I also struggled to include the highlights on the cheek and forehead as I was unsure of how to do it without adding any shading and I didn’t take enough time to shade the cheek and forehead. 

The most helpful/interesting technique I learnt

Although I didn’t use this technique I think it was the most interesting to learn. Before Traditional Drawing, I didn’t know that lines and shapes were easier to follow when copying something upside down rather than knowing what they were and making most of it up.

The process of making the self-portrait

Before we started our final product, we made a self-portrait using a mirror, so we could see our growth/development over time. At the start of the process, we took photos in the storage room with warm light to create shadows and highlights on our faces. None of the pictures I took in the storage room that day had enough shadows and highlights, but before I could take any other pictures I got sick and had to take them at home. After this, I printed the photo in black and white, so it was all tonal (colour makes it harder when just using led). After this we coloured the back of the image with a 2B pencil, we then traced our faces onto the practice piece of paper by putting the led side down and tracing the parts of your face from the image. We did this so we could get used to the new expensive paper and how it was different to normal paper. After we had done this, we practised shading and giving our features highlights to see what we could improve on in the final. Once we were happy with our practice we moved on to our final portrait. We did the same thing as before but on a much larger scale to fit the canvas. We got the 2B pencil and copies the main features, shadows, and highlights onto the final canvas. We then began work on shading in our features and highlights. I first began with my eyes then my eyebrows then nose, cheeks, chin then forehead. I think that I spent a lot of time on the eyes and trying to make sure they looked right, which took away time from all the other features. I haven’t finished my drawing yet but will move on to finishing the face and then the lips soon.