In my Pencil Portraits Class last summer, I demonstrated drawing your own portrait using a mirror. You always have your own face to draw, and self-portraits are great practice.
As a warm-up, you can begin with a blind contour drawing of your face.
Look at your reflection in a mirror, and place your pencil on your paper. Now without looking at your paper, and without lifting your pencil, begin drawing. You can go back over lines, just don't lift your pencil from the paper, and don't peek at your paper!
Your hand's only job is to follow the slow movement of your eyes over contours - lines that define outer and inner edges of your face.
Go slowly, knowing that you are not making a drawing, you are aligning your eyes and your hand, making connections and observations.
You can see from my blind contour drawing that nothing lined up quite right or was in proportion, but that some accurate, alive lines arose.
By forcing your eyes to remain on your face, you allow yourself to fully drink in the nuances and details, and you practice trusting your hand to follow along. This is a useful skill to develop. Looking at what or who you are drawing is one of the most important steps in any drawing.
Now that you are warmed up with a blind contour drawing or two, you are ready to make another sketch, allowing your hands to move slowly, and your eyes to dance between studying your face, and checking that your lines are landing in the right place on your paper. Look at your face 90% of the time, and steal quick glances at your paper 10% of the time. At first it feels hard, but soon you'll trust yourself, and you'll fall into a rhythm.
I hope you give this a try! All you need is a mirror, a pencil and paper.
Happy Creating!
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