In Traditional Drawing this term we focused on drawing self-portraits. At the beginning of the term, we learn about useful techniques, such as cross-hatching and hatching, perspective, creating highlights, and negative space. This eventually came into use when we started the process of making the self-portraits.

Evaluating Skills:

I felt I was good at getting a basic shape and design for my main features, e.g. mouth, nose and eyes. The nose and eyes were the easier areas for me to draw, especially the eyes as it didn’t rely on a huge amount of shading and instead relied on lines and shape. I struggled a lot with shading. I had to re-shade a lot of the areas of my face because there were too many obvious lines and the direction/flow didn’t look right. However, as I went on I found it easier to get the general direction the lines were supposed to go in, which made the drawing look more natural and realistic, but I still found it hard to make the drawing look smooth. Another area I struggled with a lot was the mouth. I found it hard to get all the detail in the mouth, especially the cracks. I didn’t find the shading extremely hard, but it was the fine detail that stumped me for a long time. I found shading the nose was one of the easier areas, and managed to get a decent amount of detail onto the area. I also struggled a lot with the hair shading and didn’t understand how to make it look realistic, so  I procrastinated for a very long time and didn’t end up finishing it.

Considering that I do not have much experience in this area, I thought my work was successful. I took a while to get started and often spent several lessons on small areas I found difficult. The drawing looks realistic, and very similar to the original picture, which I am quite proud of.  

Techqniues:

Throughout the semester, we learn about many interesting and useful techniques, and I gained a broad understanding of shading and line techniques, which helped me in the making of my portrait. I found the technique of cross-hatching very interesting. Cross-hatching is a popular drawing technique that involves creating a series of intersecting lines to achieve shading and texture effects. Cross-hatching adds an interesting element of texture to drawings, making the drawing more captivating.

The other technique we learnt, negative space helped me in getting the right shape in all my features.

Negative space is a drawing technique that focuses on capturing the space surrounding the main subject rather than the subject itself. I used this to draw features such as eyes, lips hair and small details like the dress. Negative space helped me draw the right shape of features as it made me see them in different ways, so I was drawing lines instead of a feature, such as an eye.

Process:

The first step in our self-portrait was taking a photo. It took multiple tries for me to get the right photo. I wanted all my features to be shown and a lot of contrast in the face which would add interest to the drawing. After taking a photo I was pleased with, we transferred the photo onto an A3 piece of paper by shading the back of the photo and then lightly tracing it onto the A3 paper. There was another way to transfer the photo, which was to project it onto the paper and then trace it, but I chose the other way as it was easier.

After transferring the photo, we began the shading and features of the drawing. I started with the feature of the eye as I was the most comfortable with it. It took a few lessons to get the correct shape of the eyes and the right shading. After working in and around the eyes, I began to work on the nose and left cheek. I spent a while getting the correct direction of the lines, then added small details like freckles and moles. The lips took a long time. I shaded them first, getting the right amount of highlight and contrast. Then I added small lines going up from the bottom and down from the top of my lips to add detail, then I added slightly bigger lines to add the cracks. After shading and drawing my main features, I began to shade the rest of the face and the neck. I procrastinated on the hair last, as it was the biggest feature with many intricate details. I first shaded the contrast, making sure to leave white bits for a highlight, then I drew in lines as hair strands, adding in singularity to make it look more like hair.

This experience taught me a lot of useful tips and techniques that will help me in the future. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience, and it was fun to see how I improved and blossomed.