Pencil Drawing: Portrait Practice

On the last night of my Pencil Drawing class at CCBC, I showed my students how to draw faces from photographs.  Above is my sketch of a student's adorable great granddaughter.  

We practiced drawing some of the models on my Portrait Reference Photo page here.

I find that it takes me several tries at drawing facial features.  I make an attempt, then see where I went wrong, erase and try again.  

That's the essence of drawing -- You make a sketch, step back, then reshape the parts that need it, and then step back again to see what you'll modify next.  

Pencil drawing sometimes feels like sculpting because it requires a series of corrections, reshaping your original marks into a final drawing.  

But as you draw, you can drop away into a place of calm focus, like a meditation.   When you step back, you've got a drawing and a new perspective.

I hope you'll keep drawing -- whether you were in my Beginner's Pencil Drawing class or not!