M2M Day 31: Drawing realistic portraits with pencil and paper
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For December, my goal is to draw a realistic self-portrait with only pencil and paper.
New month, new challenge.
For the month of December, my goal is to draw a realistic self-portrait with only pencil and paper. Along the way, in order to learn the fundamentals of drawing and portraiture, I will also draw many other faces, which will hopefully keep this month’s posts more varied and interesting.
This new challenge starts today, December 1, 2016, and, by December 31, I hope to be a master of portrait drawing.
My starting point
I’ve had strong artistic tendencies since I was a kid, but I’ve never invested much in my fine art skills. Instead, I’ve channeled my artistic impulses mainly through music, film, and computer-aided design.
Thus, to set a baseline for this month’s challenge, I’ve drawn a before self-portrait with my current drawing skills. Although it’s not the absolute worst thing ever drawn, it sadly doesn’t look very much like me.
Measuring success
Measuring success for this challenge is certainly more subjective than last month’s (where I successfully memorized a deck of cards in less than 2 minutes).
In this case, the best I can do is show a photo that demonstrates the level of drawing I’m aiming to reach…
This portrait is the example drawn in the Vitruvian Studio Portrait Drawing Course, which is the course I’ll be following this month.
Clearly, there are major differences in realism between my starting drawing and this example portrait. So, if I can match the level of this example (which will be, of course, a subjective, but hopefully honest judgement), I will consider this challenge a success.
With my goal set, it’s time to start drawing…
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
