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LateStarter63 — Pencil portrait of an Egyptian girl
#egypt #female #flickr #girl #graphite #messenger #pencil #portrait #woman #richardmessenger #egyptian
Published: 2015-04-16 16:49:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 24170; Favourites: 445; Downloads: 204
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Description
Graphite pencil portrait of an Egyptian girl on A4 Daler Rowney Airbrush Bristol board.Pencils: Various Mars Lumograph (6H to 8B), Faber Castell 9000 (6B to 8B), WH Smith 9B woodless, mechanical pencils 0.3mm/2B, 0.5mm/4B.
Blending: Blending stumps from Royal Langnickel, cotton buds and Kleenex paper tissues.
Erasing: WH Smith kneadable eraser, Blu-Tack and Tombow Mono Zero Ultra-fine eraser.
I owe my thanks to Richard Messenger for allowing use of his beautiful portrait Egyptian Faces 01 through a CC BY-NC 2.0 Licence .
This drawing was particularly challenging, even though I had adjusted the original photo to reduce the contrast. The bright highlights in the hair and the eyelashes and their shadows made this a picture that I really wanted attempt to draw.
Some more of my portraits
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Comments: 223
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Welcome to DeviantArt and thank you for adding this and two more of my pencil portraits to your favourites.
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You might be interested in my first journal, which I wrote to inspire people just like you. When I started drawing 10 years ago my drawings were nothing at all like they are now. I would never have thought that I would ever produce drawings like I now do. There is no reason why yu should not too. I improved by practice, patience and an eye for detail. My first journal I have been on DeviantART for one year. details my artistic journey from its shaky beginnings to my first posts on dA.
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Thank you very much, Amanda, and thank you too for adding this drawing to your favourites.
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Thank you very much, Jose. The lovely light was initially due to the expertise of the photographer whose photo I used as my reference.
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If I keep on going at this rate...; then, I'll end up favoriting absolutely everything you do...so, with extreme reluctance gotta stop!
I'll be back here for another visit, soon...
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Thank you once again, Paul, and, of course, for the fave.
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Man, I been looking at your artworks, again..; and, yet you said you have no 'innate' talent...; all I can say is, there are many 'skilled' artists who are incapable of producing 'photographically real' works. To me, you are extremely 'talented'...like nobody else; but, of course, that's merely just my own opinion. Everyone is fully entitled to have their own opinions, I guess. Sincerely, I wish you every possible good luck; and, keep up the 'uniquely' BRILLIANT work!
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Drawing from a photograph, as I do with the portraits that I post on DeviantArt, is a totally different thing from drawing from life. It is partly to do with the time I can spend on my drawing - unlimited, until I am satisfied enough to say that I will go no further, but also it is much easier to compare the drawing with a photo than to real life.
The drawings that I produce in the life class that I attend require a totally different approach and bear no comparison with my drawings from photos. For the life drawings we have 5, 10 or 25 minutes only.
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...yes, having 'unlimited' time does make sense; as does the photograph 'not moving'.
Still, I don't think that everybody can copy a photo so well; unless they have the same sort of 'hyper focus' skills as you obviously do.
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Thank you very much, Suezen.
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You may have started late, but your work inspires me to draw better people portraits. I am mainly a car artist.
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Portraits have always been my sole inspiration to draw. Cars are just a means of getting from A to B and hold no other interest for me. I can, however, appreciate the challenge of drawing the reflections on the chrome and paintwork .
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My god, man!!! Your stuff is incredible!! Literally, ALL of it!!
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Thank you very much, and thank you too for adding four of my pencil portraits to your favourites.
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I coulda added them all!!
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Thank you very much, Gordon, and thank you too for the 'Watch'.
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Thank you very much, Thomas, and thank you too for the faves and the 'Watch'.
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I love the shadows her hair makes across her eyes.
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Thank you very much, Scissors.
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Thank you very much, Betty.
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Thank you, Paul. It did give me some problems, but I kept working at it until I was satisfied.
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Pencil?
Damn.
I'm speechless. Great going. Amazing. The expression.
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Thank you, Sophie, and thank you very much for adding this drawing to your favourites.
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Great handling of the light and shadows here. Her curls look so wispy and real and you achieve a great skin texture that makes me pause and stare and wonder "what did he do to get that?!!" 
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Thank you, Jooleya, and thanks too for adding this to your favourites.
I have gone across the room to look at my drawing, which hangs on the wall, to remind myself of how I did it.
Regarding the skin texture, this was done with multiple layers of circular shading and blending with a tissue. I blend very frequently, sometimes using my pencil in the right hand and the tissue in the left. I use a Pentel 0.3mm 2B mechanical pencil with Ain Stein leads, very lightly. The polymer-bonded leads blend quite superbly on the smooth Bristol board that I use. Many light layers, blending between each, results in the orange-peel texture you mention. I used a 0.5mm 4B mechanical and 6B wood pencils in the same way for the darker shadows.
The hair again was drawn in several layers with some blending (to provide tonal body) and lifting out highlights with a kneadable eraser.
The very finest highlights in the hair, and especially the eyelashes, were achieved using a TomBow Mono Zero Ultra-fine eraser. When the end of this is trimmed with a craft knife it will give a very fine erased line
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Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a helpful reply about your technique, Clive!
I'm working with wood pencils and also blend very frequently, adding layer upon layer to build up the textures, but you mention the smooth Bristol board and that may one cause for my inability to create more realistic skin. I'm working on relatively cheap paper and (while I'm sure my technique can also use more improving) my blending might end up sub-ideal because of the somewhat coarse structure of the paper itself. So the smooth paper is a very helpful pointer. I think I'll invest in better paper in the near future and see if that helps me create more realism.
The ultra fine eraser must be an invaluable tool for those very accurate, tiny highlights, too.
Thanks again for your reply!
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The great thing about the 0.3mm 2B mechanical pencil is that it is always sharp! If you turn the pencil after using it a little you get an ultra-sharp edge for the smallest detail.
The Bristol board that I use is by no stretch of the imagination expensive (£6 for an A4 pad of 20 sheets). I used to use a smooth surface heavyweight cartridge paper and when I changed to the very smooth Bristol board at first the lack of tooth was disconcerting - the pencil glided over the paper without much drag. My first drawing on the Bristol board was Pencil portrait of a smiling girl which I thought showed a marked improvement over what I had drawn before. After making 8 drawings on this paper I tried one more on my heavyweight cartridge paper, of which I had almost a whole pad unused. After being used to the Bristol board the other paper felt like drawing on fine sandpaper! I was not happy with the result Pencil portrait of Jasmine . I returned to Bristol board for my next drawing Pencil portrait of a young girl and the improvement due to the paper is clear. The materials apart from the paper, and presumably my skill level, was the same for these two drawings.
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Yes, wow, with those pictures you can really see the difference the paper makes!! Thanks for taking the time to share the direct comparisons.
The paper texture that's visible in the Pencil portrait of Jasmine, that is just what bothers me about my newest pencil portrait of Ciri . I attempted to achieve more realism in my drawing and think I didn't fare too badly for my first attempt, but there's a "gritty" texture there that really distracts from the portrait itself and gets in the way of an organic and natural look. So aside from improving my drawing skills, I think it's time I improved my paper, too. I've found a 114lbs/250gsm Bristol board pad that I'm considering to order. Being an import it's a bit more than £6 here in Germany, but still much better than a gritty look.
Good point about a mechanical pencil, too. I am sharpening pencils a LOT.
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There are some Bristol boards which have a texture, although I think that the other side is smooth. The Daler Rowney Airbrush that I use is smooth on both sides, but I only ever use the top side in the pad - I leave the drawing in the pad until it is finished so that I can protect it while I am not drawing by closing the pad.
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I can't wait to learn what the paper I ordered will be like. It's good to be able to have a pad for protection, I like that much better than having lose paper. Nothing worse than to accidentally get a kink or dog ear!
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How beautiful! Your portrait doing skills are astonishing. Very beautiful one!!!
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Thank you so very much once again. It was by chance that I took up this hobby, as I describe in my First Year Journal , if you are interested.
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