Portrait

-March-

Since graphite portraits are fun for me, I decided to work in a portrait of my best friend, since she fits in my theme as a storyteller since she writes novels. The hardest part of this was the background, since I didn't like it as well as the face, so I wasn't very compelled to do it. At first, I did more of a cottonwood-type tree in the background, but its shade and texture were too similar to the hair, so I decided to use more aspen-type trees so that there would be more contrast. My favorite part, and the part I spent the most time on, was the lips, since I really love her kind of gentle Mona Lisa smile. The best tool I had was my eraser, and I used it the most, especially on the face, hair, and the light splotches in the background that connotate foliage. However, I should have used more value, because I only used one pencil (and just a random one I found lying around, at that) so I had a limited range of darks. Another frustration was that her shirt and knees accumulated strange dark speckles that couldn't be erased, so I had to try to erase them and color darkly around them. Our best guess is that someone was spraying fixative for pastels or charcoal and got it on my picture, since I sit near the door. One of the more interesting parts was that I filled her eyes and rings with words, excerpts from one of her novels, to show how some people are able to see every part of the world as a story waiting to be told. In my first background, the trees were going to be covered in text as well, but I decided to be more subtle (or more lazy, if you choose to interpret it that way) and only have text in the eyes instead of over everything. As far as message goes, this isn't my best piece, but just as a portrait I really like it.