8.5 x13″
This is a portrait of a young beautiful lady, my beautiful friend Anastasia.This was my first portrait on a large scale,which was done in April 2015. It is actually only 8.5 x13″, but for me it was big, because before that I was doing only little sketches of people on a train while commuting to work.
When the idea of drawing a portrait came to me, I didn’t know who to draw, as nobody was going to pose for me (at least) an hour. When I was doing sketches I needed an hour for the face and more time for hair, the more details I wanted to show, the more time was required.So I decided to use a photo for my portrait. Instead of drawing someone I don’t know, I decided to challenge myself and set a time constraint to do a portrait of my friend. She had a birthday coming and I had a few days to get it done. Fortunately I got a very beautiful photo of her that was already black and white. It was so inspiring so I was determined to do a nice job.
Anyway, sometimes it is easier said than done, so in my mind it was easier to do than it turned out in practice. After a long working day (as full-time employee at that time), grocery shopping, cooking and feeding the family, I finally found time to start. It was already close to midnight and I am not a night owl by nature. So after 3 hours I found out that my proportions didn’t work and I had to start all over again! By that time I was so exhausted so I decided to sleep on it and start the next day.The next time when I looked at the drawing it wasn’t bad. The proportions worked, but there was no resemblance to my friend…. was a nice looking lady, but somebody I didn’t know!
I decided to start over again and spent another 4 hours working on a new portrait, which turned out to be so much better than the first one, but still not perfect. I felt that something was off, but wasn’t skilled enough to find and fix it.Fortunately when I showed my portrait to my friend, she wasn’t critical at all! As a matter of fact, she really liked it. She sent a photo of it to her mom and she gave me such a nice complement saying that I totally nailed it. If her mother not only recognized her daughter but liked it – that’s huge reward to the artist!
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Creative Mind Stretch 
I like it. Though it is just a pencil
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Julia, it’s a very good job! And when you say that the 2nd portrait “still not perfect” – let me do not agree with you. Usually I like black and white sketches more than color ones, so I’d say this portrait is amazing especially your friend’s eyes – very impressive!
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Hi Andrey. Thank you so much for your comment. I appreciate your feedback. Your opinion actually inspired to make one portrait in dry brush technique with black oil, that I just learned but didn’t have a chance to apply yet.
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