Annalise - completed

Annalise - progress

Here's a progression of the drawing within one post. 

I've been scanning as I've gone along, but just not adding to the blog.

A few thoughts about this portrait:

• So much dark! I had to be as brave as I could (why is it scary to use a 7B pencil?). 
• I was quite happy with each section as I went along, without the need to go back at the end and change a whole lot of stuff. 
• I wish that I could've had a technique to make the solid colour of her shirt more solid looking. A bit patchy. Hmm...

     

 
     

Cara-Jane - completed

Cara-Jane - progress 10

Okay, so it looks like I'm done, but I'm not just yet. 

I like how my last post finished by saying "Hopefully not too much longer", and here it is, over three months later! It says a lot for the hectic start of the year I've had. Looking forward to getting back into this.

There's still another look over and make sure that everything is spot on - especially the skin tones.

Stay tuned... (see you in 3 months...???)

Cara-Jane progress 9

Getting there with the face. 

Still not as dark as it needs to be on the right hand side. It's hard to get the darkness right. Your mind says, "Woah, you can't go that dark!" But unless you do, it won't look right in the overall picture. 

Hopefully not too much longer!

Cara-Jane - progress 8

I got very frustrated with this next section of hair.

At a micro level, studying the light and dark shades, and replicating it either by drawing, smudging or erasing, I was never really happy with the result. However, upon scanning in the image and seeing the whole picture 'zoomed out', so to speak, I'm actually very happy with it.
I wonder it it's because my mind doesn't really know what it's drawing. Braided hair from this angle doesn't look like a braid at all, just a criss-cross of lines. As the picture comes together more, my brain makes more sense of it.

This is just an initial shading of skin tones, especially around the eyelid and under the eye. It will end up being a lot darker than this. 

From here I'll probably keep working from left to right, except for the clothes. I'll leave them until last.

After a few weeks off with holidays, I am now at the stage where I'm itching to spend time on this and finish it off.