INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone! it’s really a great thing of joy to be able to showcase one's skills and also share ideas on this platform. Please bear with my write-ups I'm not a very good writer but I was made to understand that people on this community really want to see you write and give proper details of your work so as for them to learn and also apply one's style the post am about to show you is something have posted before but I didn’t break it down through my steps and procedures on how I was able to achieve this work to reality.

I was kinda new here that’s why. I could remember when this work was giving to me as a commission work, Due to the complexity on the hair I felt like losing all hopes but something kept telling me in my mind - You can do this... You can do this - as an artiste you should have this mindset of overcoming several obstacles that may come your way, moreover it’s only a weak person that would see a particular work and give up immediately. Each time such negative thoughts want to cross my mind I always have this positive mindset that I’m a winner I can do this and that’s what’s has been keeping me going all days of my life this work am about to show you took me several weeks to accomplish because it’s a work i didnt want to rush it was giving to me as a commissioned work, the portraits work was to be presented to the lady in the picture and I had like within 3 weeks to accomplish this piece of art.

FRAMED WORK

ORIGINAL PICTURE IN COLORED FORMAT

Here is the original picture that was sent to me by my client, as an artist from the look of a picture giving to you, you should be able to detect the particular one that would look beautiful several pictures were giving to me but I decided to go with this one because I knew it will come out very fine.

Things to consider when collecting pictures to draw from your client

The nature of the work

this where you consider how large the work might look like, are there many features in the work that could cause much stress to you

The time frame

check your schedule can I be able to finish this work in so so time? Well that a question for you lol.

The Available materials you need to accomplish such work

The nature of the picture

The nature of the picture to be drawn e.g. resolution of the picture. we live in a generation where people collects images through several means e.g. Whats-App whats-app is not a very good platform to collect pictures am not condemning whats-app just that ,as an artist because it tends to reduce the quality of the picture, the smallest unit of a picture is called PIXELSand this pixels contains pixel values that combines together to form an image so when it's altered a little bit its reduces the resolution and quality.

Have a one on one conversation with your client

It would be a very good idea to speak with you client one on one so that by so doing you can get the image from him or her either by Hard copy or soft copy

Charges

well this days some young artiste like us get kind of scared on what to charge. but it’s as simple as ABC don’t get scared to say your mind people that love your work would always appreciate it no matter what, you are the one doing the work drawing is not as easy as most people see it. Based on my observation I have noticed that artiste are one of the most careful, creative, imaginative set of professionals when it comes to drawing, what I consider before I charge.
• Time
• Complexity of the work
• Size of the work , each frame size should have a price tag .
basically this are what I put into consideration but if you know of any other method please feel free to comment, am just trying to shear my idea here.

GRID PICTURE OF THE ORIGINAL/DRAWING

MY FIRST APPROACH

The image was sent to me by the client into my phone through ZENDER application, I printed it out on an A4 paper, I printed it out in A4 papers in a panchromatic color format (black and white).

GRIDDING

Over the years, I have been drawing portrait works without gridding and I get some kind of errors doh its very normal to make mistakes as an artiste sometimes the mistakes we make while drawing could lead us to a wonderful piece because that is where your brain do the math to actualize or revive your work back. Doing a portrait work without gridding consumes much time and you may not be able to get almost accuracy.

ESSENCE OF GRIDDING

it helps in increasing or reducing the scale of your work, it makes your work easier etc. below is and image on what gridding looks like. On the image we have large scale and small scale. The large scale should be where you want to draw on and the small scale is the printed work, so it’s just like enlarging your work to a bigger scale. If you want to grid a drawing after printing out the picture on A4 paper draw series of lines in form of boxes with any measurement of your choice e.g 20cm by 20 cm the boxes should be a complete square for large scale and for the smaller scale maybe 10cm by 10cm. check my image below its self-explanatory you try to draw from the small scaled work into the large scaled work that’s how to increase or rather enlarge your work.

The type of paper I used is called Glossy paper.

Paint brushes and cotton board

kneaded Eraser

Charcoal pencil /pencil colour

Tortillions

progress shot 1

In this stage i tried to get out the outline of my work after gridding, that is the first stage to accomplish before you proceed to your next stage

Progress shot 2

In this stage i still continued with my first procedure and also did some part of the hair, when drawing you need to have a guideline or sequence of movement e.g. if you started from the top, always try to follow that pattern from top to bottom or from Left hand side to the Right hand side, the essence of this is that when you start from the top and move to the bottom of your work without moving sequentially it could stain your work

Progress shot 3

Still following the same sequence

Progress shot 4

As you can see from my Shot 4 you would notice i was working from Top left hand side working downwards by drawing some part of the Hair

Progress Shot 5

In this progress shot i continued by shading some part of the face and also the hair.

Progress Shot 6

Progress Shot 7

In this stage as you can see, i have a printed copy of the picture on A4 paper i come from a country where power supply is a huge problem. So printing your work out will help you so as to work when there is no electric power supply,
from my progress work you would notice that i am moving in sequence.

progress shot 8

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Progress shot 17

At this stage I applied my pencil colors on the shirt because if you noticed on the original pics the shirt has some colors of brown, red, blue, and orange etc. so with my own initiative i decided to improvise a way to get almost exactly that shirt color .

DETAIL WORK

DETAILS ON THE FACE

as you can see the image below shows the details on the face, I was able to achieve this by making proper use of my paint brushes tool, cotton boards and also tortillions to blend the charcoal graphite on the face. When I was applying the charcoal pencil I made sure I applied it on the surface with care and when shading your work you would need to apply the techniques of (TONAL GRADATION) tonal gradation deals basically with the tone of shades used on your work the dark part and the lighter part one needs to consider all this.
Here is a detail work of the face

DETAILS ON THE BACK GROUND OF MY WORK

In achieving this back ground, i got my concept from a technique of shading called HATCHING hatching is a type of shading which involves strokes of lines in a parallel format but drawn diagonally .
how i achieved this line
I achieved this line by using a ruler and a eraser, i set the ruler diagonally then i sharpen the mouth of my eraser with a razor blade and then slide it at the edge of the ruler to get that line.

BELLOW IS AN IMAGE ON THE HAIR PATTERN

DETAILS ON THE HAIR

When drawing the hair i put into consideration the pattern of the hair, before you work on any hair you need to understand what you want to achieve on the hair. the hair pattern you would need to study it before applying your charcoal pencil on the work, I also put into consideration the tonal gradation of the hair pattern and that really helped me.

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CONCLUSION

This project work wasn't as easy as it may seem it almost gave me goosebumps, there is something i have noticed as an artiste when you start a drawing the first stage always looks discouraging but what it needs is more time hardwork and patience and perseverance .
I hope everyone must have pick one or two things from my post this is one of the longest post i have done so far
am not perfect so if you have any corrections for me feel free i'm here to learn also.
......................................THANKS FOR VIEWING...............................................
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