I want to challenge myself I want to try and draw something that's quite detailed. Right from the start had an idea of how I wanted to go about composing this image and normally I would create some rough thumbnail sketches to give myself a few ideas. I started off by making a really rough preliminary sketch and started to plan out where I wanted everything.
It was difficult to draw out such a small scale and create those details but I just carefully work out where to place the marks with the pencil and eventually it all comes together.
Perhaps one of the most challenging things with this drawing specifically, was to draw in the eyes correctly. I had to make sure I was using a sharp pencil so that I could be more accurate.
I tried to draw in the majority of her surroundings first so that I was confident with the proportions. I'm using a 4b charcoal pencil. I was able to get a range of different pencil shades and turns just by changing the pressure I apply to the paper.
Most of the time when you create a portrait, it's the person you have drawn that should be the main subject that means you don't want your background to take away the attention from that subject. You don't want it to overpower the main aspect of the drawing. You should also look at how you have done the drawing. Look at how dark you have shaded in parts of the drawing. Think of the contrast it would have with a certain background.
The overall drawing had taken me a long time to finish about eight hours, so quite a while to finish but I really enjoy the process of creating them and doing something different once in a while.