I took the Traditional Drawing elective in semester 1 of 2023 (Year 9), and throughout the process I have learnt lots of new techniques and honed my existing skills in realistic pencil drawing.
Photos of my Self-Portrait Progress
1. Evaluate your Skills
I think my work is successful because I tried my best and put a lot of effort into it, I made sure to try and focus as much as I could in class.
I believe I was good at shading and comparing my drawing with the reference photo in order to get the most accurate copy possible. I also believe my shading technique was very smooth, and I liked the contrast values in my art. I made sure there was no smudges as I used a handguard. I really looked closely at the reference image and marked out the shadows and shapes, which helped the image look realistic. I made confident strokes when drawing defined lines and I shaded smooth gradients for soft shadows.
I struggled with time management, as I found myself running out of time if I had to complete the drawing to the best constant standard that I could, as the way I shaded took very long to build up the layers. I also sometimes find it hard to break down the image into simpler shapes, and sometimes I lose track or focus on which area of the reference image I was copying, as the image was quite complex.
2. Most helpful Technique
The most helpful technique I learnt in traditional drawing was to build up layers when shading.
3. Process and Choices
Starting from an introductory lesson, we sketched a quick self-portrait via mirror, along with still life drawings. We then learnt new techniques and methods for drawing and shading, and practised and experimented in class. We moved onto taking reference photos to base our self portraits off of, I experimented with different angles and light sources and intensity. I chose to use the photo of me with a strong highlight and interesting, intricate, contrasting hair shadows to challenge myself. I heightened the contrast and resolution of the photo and changed it to greyscale to make it easier to copy with pencil. I then printed the photo out and I used a transferring method (shading graphite on the back of the paper and then tracing the main outline of the image with the graphite side face down on the final canvas) to ensure that my final portrait has accurate proportions (I chose this over other transferring methods as it was easy to use).
I incorporated what I learnt from the entire semester’s experience into starting a practise self-portrait, experimenting with the watercolour paper and pencils, before working on my final portrait. Throughout the process, I made sure to regularly compare my art and the reference image with the aim of it to be as similar as possible. I also used a handguard, kneadable erasers, and pencils I brought from home. I also measured proportions using my pencil to copy my photo accurately. I worked on shading it left to right in order to avoid smudging, starting with a 6H pencil as I wanted to mark out the main shadows and build a smooth and solid foundation before setting the darker values in. I then shaded over it with a 2H and finally a 6B for the darkest values. I’m very satisfied with the progress I’ve made so far.