A pencil portrait of EMMA WATSON 2

YES I'm BACK!

Hello everybody! Sorry I have been away for a while...

I spent a month busy learning how to use other medias like water color, soft pastel, acrylic, color pencils and even tried to do some craft works. Been reading up on lots of tutorials and watching many videos.

I want to do some color works and crafts besides the usual graphite portraits this year, though it is still my favorite.

I thought of posting some of my experiments last month but on second thought, I better make some improvement before that. So here's another pencil for you:







Beginning with my usual ingredients: pencils 2B to 8B, kneadable eraser and tortillions.











The smooth art cards that I'm getting used to already... (how many left?...)









mechanical pencils loaded with 2B, 3B and 4B leads.









Beloved tissue that changed my life...














Here's the basic sketch to position the figure on paper.












Working on the eyes, nose and mouth proportion...












Completing with the hair proportion. Took me about 1 hour 30 mins in total.















Still my favorite step when the blending starts, with the trotillion first, on smaller areas like the eyes.












My next favorite thing to do, blend the shading with tissue and see the photographic tone...













Working on darkening the features now that the basic shading is done.












Working on the hair next...














Basic shading for the hair done. Not darkened yet.













Used a mechanical pencil (4B) to draw the strands of hair to make it look darker and more realistic. Darkened some parts as well with 6B pencil.













Creating a little background for this one... not too dark... I just shaded it with 3B pencil and added on more tone with a bit of 6B.










I'm using up to 8B to do the final touch up. Been wanting darker tones lately...












... and here we have it at last...

I find the tone a little softer than the previous ones. I think I'm still looking for some kind of balance...








Well, life is an endless search for happiness and perfection. I have yet to find peace in whatever I do.

This one took me 9 hours and 35 mins, a little faster than my usual snail pace. There is no point spending too much time working on something that is not really good enough to be 'epic' anyway, and I'm trying to feel more freedom instead of stress when I work.

I'm learning hard now... will I be able to find more time to do all I want to this year? No idea, but I'll try...

Thanks for looking!